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In this episode of the OnTrack Podcast, we explore the innovative BOM Portal in Altium 365, a cutting-edge tool transforming PCB design and electronic development. Tech Consultant Zach Peterson sits down with Ananth Avva, General Manager at Altium's Cloud Platform, and Damir Khayrutdinov, Product Manager at Altium, to discuss the tool.  Altium's BOM Portal, compared to ActiveBOM, offers a seamless and efficient approach to managing bill of materials (BOM) throughout the product lifecycle. We dive deep into the capabilities and features of the BOM Portal, including its integration with various CAD tools and its role in streamlining design-to-realization processes. Learn from our guests about the trends and challenges in electronics development and how Altium Designer 24's BOM Portal addresses these issues.  Key Highlights Discussion on trends in electronics development Reasons for building the BOM Portal on Altium 365 Challenges in BOM management and how the BOM Portal addresses them Insights into the relationship between ActiveBOM and the BOM Portal, how it works, customer response, future developments, multi-board systems, and the future vision for Altium 365 Resources and Links Follow Ananth Avva and Damir Khayrutdinov on LinkedIn Learn More about BOM Portal Here How to 'Shift Left' and Connect Procurement and Engineering? Altium 365 BOM Portal Step-by-Step BOM Portal Webinar Transcript Zach:  Some of the features that you just mentioned sounds a bit like ActiveBOM in Altium Designer and I think the more experienced Altium Designer users out there will notice this. So, how exactly does this new tool compare with ActiveBOM? Does it replace it or does it complement it? Damir Khayrutdinov: Yeah, it's a good question. ActiveBOM is a BOM tool what was designed to help engineering team release design BOMs with all needed information and capabilities such as adding alternates, line numbers, custom lines, et cetera. And seems it works well based on level of adoption and user feedback. However, it's embedded into the design tool, Altium Designer. Zach: Hello, everyone. Welcome to the Altium OnTrack podcast. I'm your host, Zach Peterson. Today, we're talking with Ananth Avva, General Manager of Altium's cloud business and Damir Khayrutdinov, Product Manager at Altium. We're gonna be discussing one of the new features in Altium Designer 24 and that feature is the BOM Portal. I got to see a short demo of it before this episode and so I'm very excited about this new feature and I hope all of you will be as well. Damir and Ananth, thank you so much for joining me today. Ananth Avva: Yeah, likewise. Great to be here, Zach. Zach: So, what are some of the trends and problems that you're seeing in the electronics development space, Ananth? Ananth Avva: Yeah. So, I think the common root cause is the velocity of the actual development process continues to accelerate and the proliferation of electronics as everyone probably listening to the podcast, they're no stranger to that. But I think that's the root cause but the symptoms show up and I would say in three different areas. The first one is, sort of, mapping requirements and intent to the actual design. So, when you start going from functional to physical to actually the layout, are you actually bringing those requirements all the way through, right? The second one, while in the post Covid era, we've seen supply chain, et cetera, settle down. Supply chain, and also just compliance for components 'cause that's still about 40% to 70% of what you're building is a big area of focus especially as we're getting into whether it be geopolitical tensions in the Red Sea, all the way to trying to understand your actual full traceability of where the components coming from down to the fabrication plant. So, that's a very big area of focus, especially for our aero military customers. The third area, I would say, is getting into some of these emerging themes like sustainability and getting down to what is the footprint of what I'm making and 80% of, sort of, the sustainability aspects is done in design. And so, bringing some of those thoughts, especially when you're thinking about your BOM and you're thinking about, sort of, orchestrating your entire supply chain, that's come up and starting to come up, especially with DPP requirements coming in Europe. And lastly, it's the collaboration with manufacturing. So, we deal a lot for obvious reasons with designers and that handoff process and making sure that the manufacturers and the components that they're selecting versus what was in design and then people are moving lockstep. That continues to be a big focus. But all of these four areas are sort of the symptoms but the root cause is, again, just the velocity with which development's happening. Zach: Well, given the velocity that you've mentioned, it sounds like that was part of the motivation behind building a lot of these new features in Altium Designer 24. So, what was the motivation behind building the BOM Portal on Altium 365? Ananth Avva: Yeah, I think with Altium Designer, I mean that's obviously where we have our design audience, but we wanted to build a front end where other folks can come in and start collaborating and very specifically, your component, sort of, manufacturing personnels or even the masses where they're able to actually get that visibility. I think of, sort of, that BOM as the first, sort of, physical manifestation where the design is actually born, right? You're in the design to realization space, that's the first front end that everyone can actually look at and collaborate on. And so, the motivation for doing this in the cloud and basically having this sort of abstraction layer out of AD because one of the key things is, the BOM Portal, while, you know, it's highly functional and highly integrated into Altium Designer, it's mixed CAD. So, we'll actually work with all the CAD tools. And so, we really wanted to make sure that we have that one front end where it's not just for designers but it's also for all of the other satellite professionals that they touch and they're able to come in and collaborate to ensure all the issues that we just talked about in the electronic development process. We have a way to mitigate those risks and have those participants come in and basically get that view and also basically get the ability to edit and collaborate on the design itself. Zach: So, since we're here to learn a bit more about the BOM Portal tool, Damir, maybe you can tell us what are some of the BOM management challenges that you've seen across the industry that inspired your team and the development of this new tool? Damir Khayrutdinov: In addition to the standard challenges and BOM and supply chain management for electronics such as chip shortage and second sourcing, we noticed that the processes and tools used for that are mostly from 90s. Most still use Excel files and emails for that. So, to get the PCB BOM ready for ordering, the procurement team works with exported Excel BOMs. This process typically involves four, five emails with collaboration about three or four contributors who are responsible to make decision. Yeah. So, this takes time to interact and because of the friction happens later in the process, cost of the work, time and money wise, is more expensive. Of course, there are companies who well adopted with POM MRP and the ERP systems, but even the company implemented such systems, the level of its adoption is different. So, we track the cases when engineering use POM PDM, but procurement still works with Excel, shared drives, et cetera. Another common problem is fragmented approach to accessing and analyzing technical specifications, compliance information and supply chain data. Typically, procurement expert quality engineers and compliance specialists have to navigate through multiple platforms to gather necessary details about parts. The result in scattered data, yeah, manage it across different systems, often leading to limited access to all of these team members. And we can talk also about product teams and OEM specifically. For such teams, the BOM management is not finished once the BOM is released. You should be aware of the manufacturability of your released PCB BOM during the end customer warranty period or product production cycle, which might be not just a few weeks or years. So, for such teams, BOM management is an interactive process that is time consuming and error prone due to constantly changing supply chain. For such teams, the manufacturability is a function of a time. So, the release BOMs needs to be constantly monitored. And in order to manage that, most of the teams still use manual processes for that which is not so effective. So, I would highlight these three common challenges which are at across the industry. Zach:Yeah, you mentioned Excel files and emails. I will admit I'm guilty of that one, but I think it's because of the lack of anything better and everybody else does it. So, you're kind of shoehorned into doing this because there just hasn't been anything better really. So, given all of those issues that you brought up, how does BOM Portal help solve some of those challenges? Damir Khayrutdinov: Yeah. In short, the BOM Portal helps to take advantage of rich parts and supply chain information to scrap BOM and identify risks from multiple angels. It might be availability, it might be cost, it might be compliance, second sourcing, et cetera. Next is the collaboration aspect, which is, I would say, one of the core features of the A 365 platform. So, with the BOM Portal, you can get the advantage of constant platform for engineering and procurement team in one, so no exported files without context anymore and you have a common collaboration process in one. And third, I would say that we didn't really use it, but it's a parts watchdog feature which is currently in the closed beta, but it helps to deduce supply chain risk and ensures continuous production by proactively tracking and providing warnings for supply chain issues, prompting timely action to avoid any disruptions. Of course, we still offer parts traceability or we call it very usage which simplifies the identification and assessment for potential absolute issues. So, these three things. Zach: You know, some of the features that you just mentioned sound a bit like ActiveBOM in Altium Designer and I think the more experienced Altium Designer users out there will notice this. So, how exactly does this new tool compare with ActiveBOM? Does it replace it or does it compliment it? Ananth Avva: Yeah, it's a good question. ActiveBOM is a BOM tool what was designed to help engineering team release design BOMs with all needed information and capabilities such as adding alternates, line numbers, custom lines, et cetera. And seems it works well based on level of adoption and user feedback. However, it's embedded into the design tool, Altium Designer. And ActiveBOM has a strong dependency on the design data. So, in order to use it for procurement, you need to share design, all design and provide access to the design tool. Next is that it helps on the design stage but not beyond it. For example, you can create the ordering from multiple PCBs which need to be assembled. It's also not effective to use in a production stage. For example, in order to add additional alternates suggested by your contract manufacturer, you need to release the wall design in ActiveBOM. The BOM Portal is designed to support BOM management in all electronic product lifecycle stage. So, in addition to the generic BOM tool capabilities for scrapping, it includes capabilities need to control obsolescent for the released boards, compliance management and part search capabilities, especially for alternate search. So, it's definitely not just a BOM tool, not just a BOM editor as ActiveBOM is. Zach:So, if we could, let's dig into how the BOM Portal works. Can you make this a bit more tangible for our listeners. Damir Khayrutdinov: As I mentioned, the BOM Portal provides benefits for the different roles and support BOM management in all lifecycle stage. We can start from the early design stage where BOM Portal can speed up the process of prototype BOM scrubbing and preparing it for purchasing. I can share my screen and just share how it works. Zach: So, we're looking at Altium 365 right now and I see a bunch of projects you have on screen. Damir Khayrutdinov: So, I have this proto design. It has just version 1.1. If I open it, it'll open it in a separate tab. I believe you still see it. And here is a viewer, online viewer, which is available in A 365. There is schematic viewer, PCB viewer and of course, bill of material. And as you can see, engineering was focused only on critical parts. So, there is no any part numbers specified for generics such as capacitors or resistors, et cetera. And in order to prepare it for purchasing, we have the capability to create a managed BOM from the design and scrap it without touching of engineering data, which might be critical for some cases. Yeah. So, once I click to create a managed BOM from design, procurement is able to select what ORM should be used. We also support it. And once the bill of material will be created, it'll be stored at the same folder as original design. So, it takes a minute. Yeah. So, we can refresh the page and here is my BOM which I just created. If I click on the original design, you will see that now I have a child BOMs and link to this procurement BOM created from the design. So, let's open this bill of material. And what we see? We see exactly the same bill of material what was created by engineering, but for the part numbers which are not specified, we see this lamp icon which means that exact map is not defined and it's true. We don't have exact part number for this BOM line, but BOM Portal try to analyze all information about this BOM line, about this component, and it has some suggestions. So, if I click on this lamp, you see that BOM Portal suggested multiple parts which has parameters specified in BOM line and they are colored with green. In order to see all parameters, we can switch to the advanced parametric search and we see what data is actually was analyzed and used in order to help engineering work with procurement actually find parts. So, you will see that BOM Portal analyzed designator and description and track that this is capacitor. The capacitance is 100 nanofarad. We detected voltage rating, we tracked the case package and we have suggestions. As a procurement, I will pick up just a component which is in stock with minimum order quantity which is also shared here and in stock. Yeah. I would pick up this one. No, it's not a good because we have not recommended for new design. I will pick up this one and click Use. In this manner I can scrap all my BOM and also, I can even improve it. You see that there is one part which was specified by engineering has obsolete lifecycle state. Maybe it's good for the prototyping because this part is in stock et cetera. But as procurement I will try to find alternate and just notify engineering that there is another component available in the market. And how I will do this and how BOM Portal help me is that we have try alternate search mode which provide alternates specifically found for this original part number and we have confidence core which means that from this information, you can understand how this part is compatible with the original one. So, this is how BOM Portal can speed up the process on BOM scrubbing for proto BOMs. And other case, what I would like to share with you is prepare BOM for production run. For this, I have this bill of material which is available in my- Yeah, I just exported it to Excel file. It has just a few columns, designator, quantity, manufacturer and MPN and some of the BOM lines have alternates defined. So, let's upload this Excel file into the BOM Portal and see how it will work with it. So, one second. Demo version 5. Yeah. Once this BOM file will be uploaded into the BOM Portal, it'll be automatically under the version and revision control as any other managed design, which is also a benefit for data management things. So, I have these BOM file uploaded. I open it in BOM Portal. BOM Portal ask me if there are alternates is defined? I will say yes because we don't know what exact means these lines which means designators. And here is it. So, we enrich. What BOM Portal did? It enriched the data which was available in the original BOM file. You see, the same four columns. But additionally, you can see all data provided by our data provider. So, in my case, I use pro-level subscription with SiliconExpert integration and I can use both of them in my BOM scrubbing. So, you can see that I have two lifecycle columns, one is getting from IHS Markit, another one from SiliconExpert. And for some cases, it's quite useful. For example, for this part, IHS Markit doesn't know about any- There is no any information about lifecycle, but SiliconExpert has it. Another example is with one of the challenges on scribing BOM for production run is adding alternates, is adding alternates to non stop production run on your contract manufacturer. And the BOM Portal has this capability to add alternates from different sources. For example, for this case, we will use alternates defined in my library, which means that it's company approved alternates. So, they were previously tested and approved to be used in my company. So, I will just click on add additional, add alternate online and we'll see all alternates, a little bit for this BOM line for this component. I see alternates from my library and I also see additional alternates which is coming from data providers. So, I will use this one. Next is, that usually, production run is not going for one or multiple BOMs. Yeah, you can have a production run with a thousand of boards and we can check is there any issues related to the production run to the number of production quantity. Yeah. Let's put 10,000 and check what we'll have. In issue step, I see that we have supply chain issues that some of the BOM lines have insufficient stock which might be also a problem for my production run. And how can I fix that? I have favorite suppliers and I see estimated BOM coverage coverage. So, I will just use additional suppliers here and we'll see that some of the problems have gone after that. So, right now, I see that out of stock only one part or insufficient stock only two. So, in this manner, we can scrap and prepare BOM for production run, and once it'll be ready, we can release it. And next, we can do comparison with original BOM files. So, these capabilities, it's not allowed in just in ActiveBOM tool. Yeah. And the last one what I would like to mention is how the BOM Portal can help for obsoleteness teams or quality teams. So, as I mentioned previously, we have this used parts report or parts watchdog, which is currently on beta. But what it can do? So, it grab all parts used in all my PCB BOMs and share risk information in one simple page. So, for example, I can be focused only for the critical parts and... One second. Yeah. I have this filter by component type. So, right now, I see all used parts in my workspace. I can filter out them by, for example, ICs and easily see what the status is for IC components in my workspace, in my products. One I see has discounted lifecycle states, and here, I also see in what projects, so I easily can identify what projects affected by this issue. So, this is how BOM Portal can help and speed up process on BOM scrubbing and help to mitigate supply chain risks. Zach: So, you mentioned earlier one of the very interesting features is grading of alternates or replacements. And I have to be honest, that is something where I have spent a lot of time trying to find either an alternate source through a broker when something is out of stock or just a totally replacement part. And it's really hard to find something that will work sometimes that won't force you to go back in and change the PCB layout before you start producing something. So, I have to ask, are the replacements being graded based on pin compatibility or are there other dimensions that are being used to grade the replacements? Damir Khayrutdinov: So, we utilize the supply chain data and parts data provided by allowed data providers. So, here we currently have Octopart, IHS Markit, SiliconExpert and soon, also Z2Data will be also supported. So, the confidence score provided by Octopart and IHS is just a basic rating from one to zero on how well a component will work as an alternate. SiliconExpert, however, provides a detailed grading system that evaluates component based it on various parameters. For example, rating A means that it's a pin to pin compatible replacement with exact electrical features. So, my answer is that depends on the data providers supported in your workspace, you will be able to use data providers, you will be use data provided by data providers uploaded to your workspace and alternates is also shared by these data providers. So, we have confidence score from our partners. So, it's not a data which was calculated on the file for example. Zach: So, I have to ask what are customers saying about the BOM Portal? Damir Khayrutdinov: One of the comments we have gotten from some customer is that BOM Portal allows them to replace their homegrown systems that needs custom development and maintenance. This shows us that we are really on the right track. Our customers already invested a lot to have their common custom solutions done. Still, this is not their core competency. Here, we are coming with as an electronic focused company with long history of successful software development. Another comment is that they want more meaning that we covered single BOM use case pretty extensively and now people wants to get multi-BOM use cases. We're working on the actively sought part reports I just shared with you and now we started project called Consolidated BOM which will allow users to optimize procurement for a given product, not just a single PCB board. Also, we would like to stress that we are really counting on customers feedback. We are proud to develop solutions to get positive feedback from our customers. It's not to say that we are fully bottom up as we do have a vision where we want to take the product, but we are bottom up enough to give our users flexibility they need. So, please to try BOM Portal and provide feedback so we can take this to the next level. Zach: So, regarding your vision for this tool, what are some of the future developments that are planned for it? Damir Khayrutdinov: The top end request is ability to work on a level of multiple BOMs versus a single board BOM. I already mentioned that we started project called Consolidated BOM. Another area is integration with ERP and POM, which is requested mostly by enterprise guys. And pretty constantly, we are getting requests about BOM review workflow. This is another example where our customers start developing their own solutions as there is nothing flexible enough on the market available. Zach: Just to clarify something, you said multiple BOMs. Would that be for, like, a multi-board system? Damir Khayrutdinov: Yeah. But I would just highlight that there is a case called consolidated BOM for ordering, when procurement expert needs to order parts for multiple BOMs which might be not used in one product. Yeah. You have separate PCBs just needs to be assembled. But another case is multi-board BOM, which is a part of the product. And this is a kind of next thread and it also in our roadmap, but it'll be implemented with a multilevel and multi-PCB BOM approach. Zach: So, I have another question here for Ananth. We've spent a lot of time talking about and learning about the BOM Portal, but, of course, it is part of Altium 365. So, if you could, could you talk about the future vision for Altium 365 more broadly? Ananth Avva: Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I think in the opening of the podcast, we talked about some of the areas of challenge and I think the goal for Altium 365 is to basically bridge the idea to realization processes, right? As evidenced by the BOM Portal, one of the first areas that we're focused on is bringing data and the right data in context. So, bringing the requirements in, so capturing the intent is going to come up here pretty quickly where we're going to have requirements tool that's specifically built for electronics. Those requirements then will automatically not just map into design but also start going into supply chain decisions. So, one of the questions that you had asked, Zach, on, well, is it going to a pin level? If that's a key requirement, we can actually make that as a trigger or a rule in the BOM Portal. And then, the next step is, obviously, then going into EMSS and tightening, sort of, our collaboration layers with EMSS where they can come in and engage. So, I think the first step that we're doing is building the right front end to have the common data layer that traverses, sort of, the decisions that are being made from start to the finish. The second is building a system of engagement on top of that system of record. So, what do I mean by that? All of these co-pilot/suggestion style interfaces that you're seeing with BOM Portal where we're reducing the cognitive load on whether you're a procurement professional or whether you're an engineer and actually ensuring that cognitive load is symmetrical, like, meaning just because I'm going to make a change or an engineer makes a change in the design, having the ability to either put cost constraints on them or vice versa, right, because you had to do something at the PCB level and the procurement team needs to know that now, the overall cost of the particular board has changed. Bringing those types of decision support tools and making this a system of engagement where people are actively collaborating to an outcome as opposed to just, sort of, for the sake of collaboration where you're getting visibility. That's something that we're working on and we're already seeing where for every, sort of, PCB designer that we have or for every two to three PCB designers. We have one non PCB designer coming into 365 and engaging. And this is everywhere from software engineers to mechanical engineers, to component folks, to procurement folks, to manufacturing engineers. So, bringing all those roles and bringing the right context in which they can engage, that's the second piece. And then the last piece is we have the system of record and you have the system of engagement. That's where context based AI applications become incredibly powerful, right? So, obviously, some of the things that we're looking at is, can you look at the data sheet and can you mine, sort of, the parametric information. The data sheet in terms of the quality assurance that Damir said where, yeah, there's third party tools like SiliconExpert that are doing it, but what about the right type of winning combinations, right? So, if you're going into a system level modular design, maybe, as you're building out the BOM and now that we understand the layout map, that we understand the functional requirements, we're now able to actually give you a suggestion on here's the right winning combinations, "that give you the best performance at the best cost" from a particular component manufacturer. So, a lot of what we're doing right now is, sort of, foundational to start building that system of engagement where folks are coming in and servicing the right front ends and reducing the cognitive load. And once we understand the behaviors and once we understand what's happening, we'll obviously bring more "AI based applications" that will continue to accelerate that. Zach: So, this all sounds very exciting and I'm excited to see it all develop. Damir, how can anyone who is interested in all of this learn more about the BOM Portal and try it for themselves? Ananth Avva: Yeah. The best way is try it yourself. Everyone is invited to a free evaluation by going to our BOM Portal webpage and the free three hour is on top of this page. You just put your email and get evaluation. We also have a BOM Portal webinar on January 24th in Europe and on January 25th in the United States where we will talk in greater detail about BOM Portal and give you a demonstration of the use cases we discussed today. So, welcome to our webinar. Zach: Yeah. And anyone who's interested, make sure to take a look at the show notes and you'll see some links where you can learn more about the BOM Portal and access some great resources. Thank you both so much for being here today and discussing this. In my opinion, this is a really exciting feature and I think it's gonna be a great productivity booster for engineering teams. To everyone that's out there listening, we've been talking with Damir Khayrutdinov, Product Manager at Altium, and Ananth Avva, General Manager of Altium's cloud business. Make sure to check out the show notes. You'll find some links to some great resources where you can learn more about the BOM Portal. If you're watching on YouTube, make sure to hit the subscribe button and hit the like button. You'll be able to keep up with all of our podcast episodes and tutorials as they come out. And last but not least, don't stop learning, stay on track, and we'll see you next time. Thanks, everybody.

Show Notes 00:00 Introduction 00:22 Medicare part A 06:39 Medicare part B 15:35 Medicare part D Links Referenced: medicare.gov: https://medicare.gov Zach's email: mailto:zach@getsbi.com Nick's email: mailto:nick@getsbi.com Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/seniorbenefitinc Webpage: https://seniors-livinghealthy.com/ TranscriptAnnouncer: Welcome to our fireside chat with Seniors Living Healthy, the podcast that helps prepare and educate you as you enter and live out your golden years. With over 10 years of experience, Nick and Zach are experts in the senior market and are here to help you live a healthy, full life. And now fireside with your hosts, Nick Keene, and Zach Haire.Nick: Hello, and welcome to season two of Seniors Living Healthy, episode one. I'm Nick. And I have Zach, our co-host with us.Zach: Hey, folks.Nick: And for episode one of season two, we want to cover parts A, B, and D of Medicare, and the changes for 2022. So Zach, let's jump right in.Zach: Sounds good. So, kind of start off there from the top, Part A, just like in the alphabet, starting out with the first letter there, you know, that is our hospitalization, sir. You know, Nick, what are some common things that Part A covers?Nick: Yeah, so Part A kicks in when individuals are admitted to the hospital. It's worth mentioning, Zach, that they're admitted because we are seeing more commonly that people are being put in the hospital under observation. And that is actually covered under Part B. So, very simply, anytime someone is admitted to the hospital, not under observation, Part A kicks in.Zach: Got you. So, let's say, you know, I'm getting ready to turn 65 in a few months. I'm still working things like that, how do I get Part A? What do I have to do to qualify for it?Nick: Great question, Zach. We do get this question quite frequently. So, the most common way to qualify for Medicare is those individuals that have worked 40 quarters or ten years and paid into Medicare via payroll taxes, right? Those individuals get Medicare the month of their 65th birthday.Zach: Got you. So, no matter what, they're going to get Part A. I know you said you paid into it while you're working. Is there any additional costs added to that?Nick: Right. So, great question there, Zach, and worth mentioning here as well. For those individuals that qualify traditionally for Medicare, they worked 40 quarters, ten years, and paid in, Part A is premium-free, think of it as prepaid. But also you have those individuals that may qualify based on their spouse's, right? Their spouses may have worked 40 quarters or ten years, they also qualify for Medicare Part A the month of their 65th birthday.Then the third situation, there is a cost. And those individuals that don't have a spouse that qualifies for Medicare they can draw off of and don't have the credits themselves, depending on how much they have worked and paid in, Part A can be purchased.Zach: Yeah. So, you do still have the ability to get Part A, if you don't ‘qualify', you can always pay for that and pick it up.Nick: Absolutely.Zach: So, we know that in most cases, there's no additional premium; you've paid into it as you were working. Are there any other, you know, common costs associated with using Part A, whether it be a deductible, whether it be you know, skilled facility care, things such as that?Nick: Absolutely. So, yeah. So, basically with Part A, the way it works is it's designed with what we call a Medicare period of care, right? So, when those individuals that have Part A are admitted to the hospital, they are immediately responsible for a $1,556 deductible in the year 2022 that covers their first 60 days in their period of care, right? So, for those individuals, they go in, they pay that $1556 deductible, they're covered for the first 60 days, right?But it's worth mentioning that if they go beyond day 60 they do have additional cost, right? And that period of care doesn't end until they go a continuous 60 days without accessing care under Part A. So, assuming their period of care extends, day 61 through 90, those individuals are going to be responsible for $389 a day that they're in the hospital, and day 91 and beyond using those 60 lifetime reserve days, they're going to be responsible for $778 a day. You know, and the other thing to touch on here, Zach, that you mentioned is skilled facility care, right? So, we've seen a major transition in our market over the last five to ten years.You can recall when we were little, people had extended stays in the hospital, you know, people were in their one, two, four, six months. That doesn't happen really anymore, right? What we're seeing, the trend is individuals are being admitted to the hospital, they're being stabilized, and they're being shipped off to skilled facility care centers, right? And you know, whether that's for a hip replacement or a knee replacement, they fell and they broke something, speech, occupational therapy, whatever it may be, these individuals are staying at the skilled facility care centers for extended periods of time, not in the hospital. So, to qualify for Medicare to cover skilled facility care, they have to be in the hospital for at least three days and be admitted to the skilled facility care center within 30 days of being discharged. If those criteria are met, Medicare will cover day 1 through 20, one hundred percent, and then day 21 through 100, the individual is responsible for $194.50 per day.Zach: Got you there. So, you know, once someone is on Part A [everything 00:05:16], is there any limits where they can go, networks, anything like that?Nick: Yeah, one of the beauties of Medicare, Zach, and you know, we tell clients this all the time is Medicare's a nationwide program, right? California, North Carolina, Michigan, to Florida, and everywhere in between. They can access care, right? And that's one of the great things about Medicare is almost all facilities, almost all doctor's office accept Medicare. So, they have no restrictions, they can go just about anywhere they want.Zach: Got you. So, kind of wrapping up Part A there is, anyone can get that as long as you've worked 40 quarters or your spouse has worked 40 quarters. You're able to get that the month you turn 65, the first day of the month.Nick: Absolutely.Zach: And no matter whether you're continuing working or what you've got Part A?Nick: Yep.Zach: And with Part A alone, there was a $1,556 deductible on that they'd be responsible for but then, you know, it does help you in the skilled facility care things such as that, along with your 60-day continuous window of care. And again, no network so you can go wherever you want to go if you've got that Part A; pretty much every hospital, I'd say, in America takes Medicare.Nick: Absolutely, Zach. And just to wrap up on Part A, you know, one of the things that people need to remember is Part A is just hospital admittance insurance. Most of your typical services that are everyday needs are happening on outpatient care, or Part B, which we will be covering shortly.Zach: All right, so now we're going to roll into Part B, again, following our alphabet here, B comes right after A. So B, if you look at your red, white, and blue Medicare card, it is going to say medical, but we refer to it as outpatient.Nick: Absolutely, yeah. Yeah. And, you know, we try to eliminate confusion there because the Medicare card says ‘hospital' for Part A and ‘medical' for Part B, but we kind of feel both of those are medical, right? So, we like to explain Part B as anything that is outpatient care, or care that is not admitted into the hospital.Zach: Exactly, yeah. So, kind of got that cleared up. What exactly does it cover when it comes to different things?Nick: Yeah. So, Part B is by far the most common Medicare part, right? It's the most common used, and it literally covers any Medicare-approved charge outside of being admitted to the hospital, right? So, that could be hospital admittance under observation, that could be lab work, physical therapy, CAT scans, MRIs, doctor visits, primary care, or specialists, durable medical equipment, diabetic testing supplies, all those things encompass Part B.Zach: So, we know in Part A you get that automatically when you turn 65. Part B work the same way, or is there a few more hoops to jump through for that?Nick: Yes. So, for Part B, you know, that individual that qualifies for Medicare, either off their work experience or off of a spouse's work experience, they still are eligible to get Part B the month of their 65th birthday, right? However, with Part B, there is a premium, so Medicare does allow it to be elective.Zach: So, with it being elective, how does that situation play out? Do I have to take Part B when I turned 65? If I have creditable coverage, am I fine? You know, if I don't take am I going to get penalized? How does that work?Nick: Yeah, so we're seeing this question come across our desk more and more, Zach. It seems like in this day and age, more and more people are working post-65. We didn't run into this a lot five years ago. But basically, the way it's working is for those individuals that are Medicare-eligible, turning 65, they qualify for Medicare, they can still take Part B the month of their 65th birthday, but if they're still working and have credible coverage, right, which is defined as coverage, at least equivalent to Medicare, they do not have to take Part B. They can postpone it without penalty, assuming they have credible coverage.Zach: Got you. So, you said, you know, 2022, that average premium is $170.10.Nick: Yep.Zach: Which leads you to say if that's the average, there can be some outliers. Is there a way to make that cost lower?Nick: Yeah. So, you know, for a lot of individuals out there, they qualify for what's called Medicare Savings Programs, right? And we know those different programs, whether that's QMB, SLMB, Extra Help those types of things, those programs are designed to reduce or eliminate the premiums, deductibles, and copays associated with Part B, right? So, there are individuals that pay less, there are individuals that pay nothing if they qualify for those Medicare Savings Programs. And it's worth mentioning, to qualify for those programs, you need to reach out to Medicare, the Social Security office that goes through them.Zach: I'd be willing to bet it works the other way, too. I bet they can get a multiplier on you also.Nick: Yep, yep. So, what we see—you know, and once again, we're seeing it more and more as people are coming out of the workforce later in life—those individuals have what's called an IRMA, right, Income-Related Medicare Adjustment. So, if you have income levels above certain thresholds, Medicare is actually going to charge a multiplier, right, you're going to pay more than that $170.10 in 2022. medicare.gov is a great resource, they have the chart right there on the website, showing what those brackets are to get higher Part B costs.So, we certainly encourage people that think they may fall into that bracket, get on medicare.gov, reach out to us, you know, we can ask a couple questions and tell them what they would be looking at.Zach: Got you. So, kind of how we're on the cost of Part B—Nick: Sure.Zach: You know, if someone doesn't have credible coverage and they don't take Part B, then down the road they take Part B, what kind of penalty are they looking at?Nick: Yeah, so the government is penalizing those individuals that don't have Medicare and don't have credible coverage, right? And the penalty that they impose is 10% of the cost of Part B, per full year not covered either via Part B or creditable coverage, right? And it's worth mentioning, if they try to apply for Part B down the road, they're still going to pay that standard premium, they're going to pay that penalty on top of it, and unless they qualify for one of those Medicare Savings Programs like we were talking about, that's never going away.Zach: Yep so looking there, at you know—there are different times to enroll, in that, you know, when people do turn 65, a lot of times they take A and B at the same time.Nick: Yep.Zach: You can delay Part B, as we've talked about. What are those—that situation look like? If someone delays Part B, does that vary from when they turn 65?Nick: Absolutely. So, for individuals that are taking Original Medicare when they're turning 65, those individuals, you know, they get it the month of their 65th birthday. But for those individuals that are delaying Medicare, right, there's two different groups that it's worth mentioning here. For those people that have credible coverage that are still working, you know, they can take Part B anytime concurrent with their loss of coverage, or retirement, right, they have what's called a special election period. But the thing to mention is for those individuals that delay Part B that don't have credible coverage, they can only apply for Part B at certain times throughout the year, right?And that's what's called the general election period. Zach, right? And basically what that is a period from January 1st through March 31st each year that they can apply for Medicare Part B to go into effect 7/1 of that year.Zach: Right. So, you know, kind of look at you have your annual enrollment period, which is every year, October 15th, December 7th, which doesn't really play into this, but then you have your initial enrollment, which people might hear a lot about when they first turned 65, or take their Part B of Medicare. So, looking at, you know, we've kind of we've gone over what the premium can be as well as what possibly the penalty could be. As a whole, what does Part B have? What is it going to cover? What's going to be your out-of-pocket with that?Nick: Yeah, so you know, back to what we kind of mentioned earlier, just to kind of recap this is, Part B is going to cover anything that's not admitted into the hospital, right? So, you know, once again, that's hospitalization under observation; CAT scans; MRIs; lab work; physical therapy; doctor's visits, whether primary care or specialists; diabetic testing supplies; durable medical equipment. And the way Part B is designed, it's an 80/20 coinsurance, right? So, Medicare's covering 80%, the client is responsible for the remaining 20%, plus the Part B deductible, which is, in the year 2022, $233, right? So, it's worth mentioning here—and we tell this to people all the time, this is why we encourage people to get supplemental policies—that 20% that we speak of is uncapped.Now, if you're going to the doctor once a year, that's not a big deal, right? But if you're going through cancer treatments, if you're going through some sort of outpatient surgery, you got to pay 20% of all of that cost, which certainly leaves people with some exposure, right?Zach: Got you. So, you know, no max out of pocket; you know, you're going to keep paying that 20—Nick: Absolutely.Zach: —until—and again, Part B is very similar to Part A, there's no networks.Nick: Absolutely.Zach: They take Medicare, they're going to take in. As long as you may have been doing this, I don't think I've ran into a doctor's office that doesn't take Medicare, yet.Nick: Yeah. In ten years, I've ran into one facility that didn't accept Medicare.Zach: Yep. So, kind of wrapping up Part B there. Know no, it is, in a sense, elective; when you turn 65 or retire from work losing credible coverage, you can pick up Part B at that time. If you don't pick up Part B without credible coverage, they are going to give you a nice little permanent penalty to add onto that, which for 2022 is $170.10. Probably going to see an increase in that down the road.Nick: Mm-hm. Absolutely.Zach: It's going to cover everything for you 80/20, whether that be durable medical equipment, diabetic testing, outpatient surgery, or anything like that. But that 20% is not going to be capped.Nick: Yep, absolutely.Zach: All right. And kind of moving on down the line. Here we've done A, we've done B. We're going to skip over C, so we're going to hit in Part D of Medicare. Easy to remember what it covers because covers your drugs. Part D: Drugs, easy to keep up with there. So, we have talked about, you know, in Part A and Part B, how you get it, what you qualify for. How does that work with Part D?Nick: Yes, so Part D, you know, it's worth mentioning, Unlike Supplemental Coverage, or Medicare Advantage coverage, which we will be covering in next episode, With Part D, the individual only has to have a minimum of Part A or B of Medicare, although most people have A and B, right? But it's worth noting for those individuals that are still working that are delaying Part B, just having Part A is enough to purchase Part D. And it's also worth mentioning, you have to live in the plan's service area, right? Part D drug plans are network-based, so you have to have a minimum of A and/or B, and live in the plan's service area to purchase a drug plan it.Zach: So, also we've talked about cost. When it comes to cost, A and B for the most part, are standardized. Is Part D the same way, or you know, what is its cost?Nick: Yes. So, one of the things that, you know, we're always telling people as we're speaking with them is all prescription drug plans are different, right? And, you know, we see drug plans anywhere from $6.50 a month in premium in the year 2022 All the way north of $100 a month, right? And, you know, it's like we say, if one plan was the best for everybody, right, they would put the rest out of the business.So, as far as costs, it certainly has a wide range, and that all depends on what the scripts, what medications those individuals are taking, right? But it's also worth mentioning, just like Part B of Medicare, right? Medicare Savings Programs can cover some or all of the costs of the drug plans and can also either reduce or completely eliminate the cost of those medications people are taking as well, right? So, it can come down. And it's also worth mentioning, IRMA coming back into play here, right, that Income-Related Medicare Adjustment, for those individuals that are higher-level earners, right, they have a multiplier on that Part D premium, so they would pay that multiplier on top of the standard premium for Part D.Zach: Pretty easy to see why Part D is the most complicated part of our job—Nick: Absolutely.Zach: When it comes there. So, you know, kind of covered, premiums are going to vary, and then on top of that you could get help through Medicare, or you could get a multiplier on Medicare there. So, what does it take to qualify for Part D? I know you said yet to have Part A and/or Part B, one or the other, but what if I'm-you know, what, if I'm in that boat where I'm still working? Do I have to take Part D if I have Part A, or can I forgo it?Nick: Yeah. So, very similar to Part B, Part D is elective right? Now, you have to have credible coverage to not be penalized, but you can delay it. So, if you're 65, you're becoming Medicare eligible, you're still working, or maybe you're retired and you're still carrying group insurance, you don't have to take a drug plan as long as your coverage is credible. And once again, credible [unintelligible 00:18:59] coverage is defined as coverage at least equivalent to Medicare's basic coverage, right?So, for those individuals that are still working, they are not needing Medicare Part D, they will not be penalized for not taking a Medicare prescription drug plan.Zach: So, you said they—you know, if they have credible coverage, they're not going to be penalized, which therefore means there's a penalty.Nick: Yep.Zach: What is that penalty?Nick: Yeah. So, it's a little bit different than the way Part B works. So, for Part D, the average cost of a per prescription drug plan in 2022 is approximately $34. So, every full month that they go without credible coverage, or coverage, they are going to be penalized 1% of that $34 premium in the year 2022, times the amount of full months they went without coverage. Now, it's worth noting that average premium costs switches year-to-year, right? We've watched that steadily creep up over the last few years.So, you know, it's very hard for us to be able to give people an exact penalty, what they would be looking at. Medicare is who's going to determine those, Medicare is who's going to issue those, so we can give people an idea, but ultimately that information has to come from Medicare, right?Zach: Got you there. So, you know, we know when you first turn 65 going into Medicare, you can get Part D, if you go that route.Nick: Yep.Zach: What if I've been 65 for a while and I get some new prescriptions, it's not covered well on my plan, when can I make changes to those?Nick: Yes. So, for those individuals that are new to Medicare, they're in that initial enrollment period, right? That window runs three months before their effective date up to three months after. Once that period ends, right, they're very limited in the ways that they can make changes, right, the most common is annual enrollment period, right? Anybody that's been in this business, knows anything about it, they get bombarded, you know, in that timeframe.But from October 15th through December 7th, those individuals can make changes, as many as they want, and when the sun goes down December 7th, the last application that was signed and turned in becomes effective 1/1, right? But now over the last few years, you know, Medicare introduced the Medicare Advantage open enrollment period, right, which is now running January 1st through March 31, and during that timeframe, individuals that are on Medicare Advantage plans can make a change to their drug coverage in two different forms, right? So, they can change from one Medicare Advantage plan to another Medicare Advantage plan, or if they so choose, they can drop Medicare Advantage back to Original Medicare and pick up a prescription drug plan. But outside of those two windows, Zach, the only other situation, typically, that we see people can make changes is they have a special election period, right? And in our business, what that means is, A, they're moving, right?In our area, we see people coming down from the north moving here, or maybe they're snowbirds, they're moving from here or the north down to Florida. Those individuals get a special election period because they're moving out of that plan's service area, right? And then the other caveat would be those individuals that are post-65 that are still working, that are still carrying group insurance, those individuals have a special election period when they retire and/or lose coverage that they can make a change to their drug coverage as well.Zach: So, kind of off that point, there are networks on these drug plans that does give you the ability to change if you do move because you would be out of your network service area—Nick: Absolutely.Zach: There. Yep. So, you know, we talk to people all the time, especially [AEP 00:22:44] about prescription plans. When you're talking to us, talking to your agent, whoever, when you're going through this, one, you know, what are some things you need to make sure you have handy to make our lives easier as an agent, but then what—tell them on our end what we're looking at, to help them make a decision?Nick: Yeah, so I'm going to answer that question backwards, Zach, okay? I'm going to answer your second question first, and we'll fire away on the second one. So, for those individuals that are looking, right, to get prescription drug coverage, there's several things that they need to understand about a plan, or at least grasp, right, to know why it is what we're doing, right? It's easy for us to recommend a solution, but we feel—I know, we've always discussed this—we feel that ultimately, you know, it's our job to educate people, but it is ultimately their decision, right?So, for us, you know, what we're looking at, you know, in the grand scheme here is overall cost, right? I mean, you know, that's what I want to know, what are these plans going to cost you, whether that's in the form of a premium, whether that's in the form of a deductible on your plan, whether that's in the form of the copays you pay to fill your script each year, we're looking at that aggregate annual cost, right? Now, as far as what we need to be effective as a tool for them in searching plans, you know, all plans are different, Zach, as we know. The premium is different, some plans have deductibles, some don't, some offers zero copay on tier one, tier two, some don't, right?So, what we ask of clients to be effective in this manner is we need a list of your prescriptions, we need to know the dosages of each one of your prescriptions, and then we ultimately need to know the frequency that you're taking them or filling them, and we have the ability to plug in and pull all options in their area and discuss those costs with them.Zach: Yeah, definitely. So, kind of wrapping up Part D, put a bow on it there. It is similar to B, it's elective—Nick: Sure.Zach: —in a sense. As long as you've got credible coverage elsewhere, you don't have to take Part D at the time you turn 65. As long as you have A or B, you are eligible for it. And plans vary. This is a plan that you definitely need to reach out to your agent, reach out to us—Nick: We'd prefer if it was us, Zach.Zach: Yeah. [laugh]. Oh, yeah. And so, you know—because they do vary so much by premium, deductibles, copays, networks, things like that, but they will cover your prescriptions; there are ways out there to work that.Nick: Yeah. Just to add, wrapping up here, Zach, you know, one of the things that we always preach to our agents and we always tell our clients is, this is the basics of everything that has to do with Medicare, right? So, we feel that these are important, people need to have a grasp of the way that Original Medicare and prescription drug coverage works before they're really ever going to have a chance, right, to know how that secondary or that Medicare Advantage plan works.So, as you're listening to this, we've kind of been generic, right? We're covering the highlights. For those individuals that have more questions that maybe have a specific question, you know, reach out to us, 844-437-4253. We're here, we're ready to answer your questions, and we'd certainly love to hear from you.Zach: All right, folks. So, this kind of wraps up episode one here. We covered Parts A, B, and D of Medicare. We hope that that helped you out there, answered some questions for you. We tried to cover some of the real basic questions we get on a daily basis.You know, but if you do have more questions or want more information, you know, ready to sign up and looking for help, we'd be more than happy to help. You know, as Nick stated earlier, you can always give us a call at 844-437-4253, or we can always be reached by email zach@getsbi.com or nick@getsbi.com. We hope you found this episode informational and helpful, and as always, we'll catch you guys next time.Announcer: Thank you for listening, and we hope you found this episode informative. If we answered your questions, odds are you aren't the only one wanting to know, so please share this episode with your friends and family. If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe and rate our show on Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts to catch all of our episodes. If you want more information, or want to talk directly with Nick and Zach, you can call them at 1-844-437-4253. You can also find them on Facebook at facebook.com/seniorbenefitinc or on their website. seniors-livinghealthy.com. Thanks for listening, and have a great day.

Zach speaks with Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter Nikole Hannah-Jones about the state-sanctioned shooting of Jacob Blake, her personal career journey from the high school newspaper to The New York Times, the opposition she's experienced as director of The 1619 Project, and so much more. Click the links in the show notes to find out more about Nikole and The 1619 Project! Connect with Nikole on LinkedIn, Twitter, and Instagram.Check out her personal website. Find out more about The 1619 Project by clicking here.Donate to the Justice for Breonna Taylor GoFundMe by clicking here.Find out how the CDC suggests you wash your hands by clicking here.Help food banks respond to COVID-19. Learn more at FeedingAmerica.org.Visit our website.TRANSCRIPTZach: What's up, y'all? This is Zach with Living Corporate, and yo... look, so every week we have a great guest, and I say this every time, but, like, don't front--who else but us? Like, we drop gems on Living Corporate, right, for the free. Like, y'all don't even pay nothing for this, right? Like, we just be givin' it to y'all weekly, and, you know, I mean, I'm smiling despite the pain I'm feeling, the frustration--you know, for those who follow me on LinkedIn or whatever, like, I had to let some things go 'cause I was just upset. I still have some stuff to say, but I'ma wait on it. I'ma wait on it for a couple more months, but that day is soon coming. But anyway, that's a story for another time. [laughs] Look, even with all the pain and frustration that's going on right now with the continuous brutalization of Black bodies in both white America at large and corporate America specifically, their just slough-footed shuffle in not really addressing systemic inequity. I'm excited. I'm excited about the guest that we were able to have, that was able to grace our platform, our flagship show Living Corporate today, and the guest we have is Nikole Hannah-Jones. Now, look, I'm not gonna go into some long biography of Nikole Hannah-Jones, also known as Ida Bae Wells, is one of those most prolific writers of our time. Shout-out to Black women. She holds it down. She advocates and speaks to the reality and lived experience, the historicity, of our struggle, and she's one of the people. She comes from--you'll hear in the interview, but she comes from a similar just, like, humble background that I do and doesn't tolerate disrespect similar to how I don't tolerate disrespect, so we just vibe on a certain level. I appreciated our conversation. The next thing you're gonna hear is the discussion, the interview, that I had with Ms. Hannah-Jones. Make sure that you listen to the whole thing, make sure that you check out the show notes, and we'll catch y'all next time. Peace.Zach: Nikole, welcome to the show. To say this is an honor would be an understatement, and I recognize, especially today, this is a loaded question, but how are you?Nikole: Hm. Thanks for having me on the show and for your persistence. You know, I'm fine. This is a hard time to be in. It's always a hard time to be Black in this country, and I am more blessed than most, so I'm just trying to maintain perspective.Zach: Yeah. With that in mind, I think I'd be remiss if I didn't ask you about the state-sanctioned shooting of Jacob Blake. Of course I have some questions about your work specifically and The 1619 Project, but I'd like to get your perspective on just the historically cyclical nature of violence against Black bodies and, like, in this moment, what if anything do you think can happen to break this centuries-long pattern?Nikole: You know, a few months ago I was feeling a tinge of something that is very unusual for me, which was a slight tinge of hope, and that is gone, and there's a reason I don't often feel it. So I just looked at some data, and despite months of protests, despite all of the back to back media coverage following George Floyd, despite corporations having a so-called "come to Jesus" moment, the stats on police-involved killings have not changed. We are seeing just as many people killed by police in the first half of this year as we saw last year, and I don't know what can force this country to change practices that have been 400 years in the making. In this moment where we know everyone is recording, where there's been months of protests against police violence, that an officer would, in the public view, grab a man who was not fighting him whatsoever and shoot him in the back seven times, it's extremely discouraging, because you would think--at least in this moment--there would be more care and more fear of consequences of treating Black people like they're still in slavery and like their lives don't matter, but we're not seeing that, and it's hard.Zach: Yeah. You know, I think about the fact that--I'm a fairly new father myself, so I have a 5-month old daughter, and I think about the fact that he was shot seven times in the back in front of his three kids in his car, and I was holding my daughter at the time--or rather I was splitting time, so I was cooking and I was feeding my daughter and I just so happened to look at my phone and see that, and then just, you know, I looked at Emory and I just started crying, 'cause I was just, like, this is--just the inhumanity of it... anyway, I'm really curious as we continue forward because I think this project and the work that you do, that you continue to do--thank you for your work, by the way, bless you for that--is just highlighting how inhumanely we've been treating, 'cause there's no way that you just treat human beings like this. And, you know, speaking of the work, I've read stories about editorial bias and how Black journalists will stop submitting certain stories that center Black people because they keep getting shot down or any, you know, Black or brown people. Your work beautifully and tragically captures our stories and experiences, and I'm curious what the internal journey has been like for you to find your voice, and then how long it took before your pitched stories started getting greenlit by different editorial powers that be?Nikole: Yeah, so I started writing about Black people as a high school journalist. That's why I joined my high school newspaper. I had a column called "From the African Perspective," and I joined my high school newspaper because--if your listeners know my story at all, they'll know I was bused into white schools as part of a voluntary desegregation order starting in the second grade, and as a high school student at a predominantly white high school where most of the Black kids were bused from the Black side of town, I knew even then that we were being left out of the story and the power of you shaping the narratives for your own communities, and the only reason I ever wanted to be a journalist was to write about Black folks, period. I was interested--I'm a news junkie in general, I'm interested in the news, I've always read the news, I used to read the paper with my father--I wanted to be a journalist to write about Black folks, and there were--when I started my career I had an excellent editor who encouraged me and supported me in wanting to write. I was an education reporter and I was writing a lot about school segregation and school inequality and disparate discipline that Black students were facing, and I was encouraged to do that. My next job was not the case, and I was penalized and punished for writing about Black stories or people of color in general and was told really that it was showing my bias, that these stories were not reflective of the readership of the newspaper, and had story idea after story idea killed. And this was during the historic Obama run for the presidency, so if you can't be encouraged to write about race when the first Black man has a chance to be president, when would be the right time? And I remember I would pitch these stories and my editors would say, "No, that's not a story," and then I'd see a story almost just like what I had pitched run in The New York Times and I'd be like, "Okay, it's not that I don't have good ideas, it's that they're not interested in this coverage," and I nearly left journalism. I was stuck. This was at a time when the journalism industry was in a death spiral. Newspapers were laying off all over the country, and so there wasn't another job to be had. Like, if you had a job you'd better keep it, and I was so depressed because that's what I got into journalism to do, and I considered leaving the industry, and the only reason I didn't leave the industry is because I just couldn't think of anything else I wanted to do with my life. I'd wanted to be a journalist since I was in high school and really felt journalism was my mission. Luckily I was rescued when I was recruited to come to ProPublica, and I remember when Steve Engelberg, who's the editor of ProPublica, asked me to interview and then ultimately offered me the job, I had a very honest conversation with him and I was like, "If I cannot tell these stories, I don't want to come. Like, I'm not gonna jump from this job to another job where I'm punished for wanting to write about race." He assured me that I wouldn't be, and I wasn't, and so ProPublica was really the place where I was able to develop the style of writing that I've become known for.Zach: To your point, like, with ProPublica and now, you know, the New York Times, I'm curious to know what it's like to write and work with an institution that publishes pieces and projects like The 1619 Project but then also has puff pieces about Trump supporters and then editorial pieces like Tom Cotton's. Like, I'm curious, is there any duality there that you have to straddle or frustrations that you have to manage? Nikole: Yeah. I mean, I'm assuming that's a rhetorical question because of course, right? [laughs] I mean, this is the nature of Black folks working in any white institution. It is the reality of Black people in America. There's always a duality, and yes, you can work at a place that simultaneously will support with every resource a project like The 1619 Project and run the Tom Cotton editorial, and I think we all, as Black and brown and Asian and indigenous people in these white spaces, struggle with trying to produce the work that you think is important and necessary because of the platform. I could certainly work elsewhere, but there's no megaphone like The New York Times. So understanding that platform does something for the work that you're trying to do, but also staying true to who you are and the work you're trying to do and fighting those internal battles to try to bring the actual institution in line with the work that you do. So I have, you know, my outward work that gets published, and then I have my inward work, which is working with other folks to try to push the institution to be better.Zach: And what I find so intriguing about that is, like, it's activism in two fronts, right? Like, you have what everyone sees, and then you have the work that you're doing to push systemic change internally. Can we talk a little bit about portions of white academia's response to The 1619 Project? Like, to an extent I would imagine negativity from members of the GOP as ignorant and dumb and doofy and goofy as they are don't shock you, but has any of it caught you off-guard? Nikole: Yes, of course. So I fully expected that conservatives would not be pleased with The 1619 Project, and I also fully expected--because I studied history for a long time and I understand the field of historiography--that there would be historians that didn't agree with all of our framing or who would quibble with "Why would they put this in? Why did they not put this in? Why did they focus on this and not that?" That was all expected. What I didn't expect was that there would really be an orchestrated campaign, a small group of historians, to not just say, "We wouldn't have done it that way," but to actually try to discredit the project. Because these historians, some of them, are highly respected and regarded, I mean, I've read their work myself, it lended a credibility and really gave those who didn't have good faith criticism of the project, who just didn't want the project to exist, it gave them the meat that they needed, and that's then really disappointing and disconcerting, because the truth is not one, and literally not one, of that small number of historians who opposed the project has never contacted me, ever. They've never said, "Hey, I think you've got this fact wrong," or "Hey, maybe you should change this," which is what you do in a normal circumstance if you feel a reporter has misrepresented something or not got something right. You contact that reporter and ask for that correction. I've never to this day received a single contact, and when the group of five historians who submitted a letter to The New York Times against the project, they included people on that email who weren't even involved--men on that email who weren't even involved with the project, but not me. So I think that speaks to motivations, is what I'll say.Zach: So I was gonna say--and, you know, continually we talk about just the role that Black women play in, like, you know, saving everybody and historically not having the advocacy and support that they need, and to your point around just, like, the misogyny of and presumption that, you know, you're being excluded in your project, and then on top of that being, like, somehow simultaneously being attacked and erased at the same time, right? Like, that's--and my question following up is I would imagine... so first of all, I think, for me, like, in this moment, Nikole, what I've been thinking through and coming to peace with is that it's not that people don't understand or don't see it. A lot of them just don't care, right? So for me, as opposed--I used to get into this thing around, like, trying to educate folks some years ago, and I think I'm just past that, right? I'm curious, like, how do you manage the emotional labor of folks being intentionally obtuse, misogynistic, of course racist. Like, you're so much in the spotlight, and as you continue to flex and grow folks get madder, and so I'm curious as to, like, what does your process look like as someone who is so actively in the forefront as a voice in this moment to take care of yourself.Nikole: Yeah. [lightly] Who the hell knows? I think that I'm a human being, and some days I have dealt with it better than others. Some days I've dealt with it in ways that I'm proud of and some days I've dealt with it in ways that I'm not. People forget, you know--and it's a good problem to have in some ways, but when the bigger your platform gets, people think that somehow you don't care anymore about what people say or how people try to treat and attack your work or you personally, but that's not true. I'm just a girl from Waterloo and never expected anybody would ever know my name. I just wanted to be a reporter, and to--and I think that because of that I also don't deal with disrespect in the way that people who come, I think, from more privilege or don't come from, like, such a scrappy background, like, things roll off their back in a way that they don't for me. Respect means a lot to me, and so I fight back, and I also understand that part of the kind of, like, vitriol that I get and my work gets is because someone like me should not be in the position that I'm in. Not just that I'm Black and a woman, though that's a huge part of it, but I'm also a Black woman who presents in a very specific way. I don't look the part that they think I should look. I don't talk the way they think I should talk. I don't defer the way that they think I should defer. And all of these are intentional decisions, right? I'm not a stupid woman. I know how I'm "supposed to" present and I refuse to, and so I understand that it's all of that, and, you know, I think what I try to internalize is the venom of your enemies speaks to the importance of your work, and if this work wasn't meaningful, if there wasn't some sense of fear or consternation about what this work could do, they wouldn't care about me and they wouldn't talk about me and they wouldn't write about me, and I have to always remind myself of that, that I'm doing this work for a mission. This is where it's helpful, you know, to have--Ida B. Wells is my spiritual godmother. Nothing that they could throw at me even comes close to what she had to deal with or even what my own grandmother had to deal with or my own father had to deal with, so I can deal with any of it.Zach: So, you know, we're gonna talk about my wife in a moment--and it's gonna make sense in a second--but when that series, that piece came out really seeking to discredit and undermine The 1619 Project and I looked at those names--because I have a network of academics as well, and so a lot of the people that were--well, some of the people rather that were in that group folks in my network knew personally and, like, really highly regarded, and I really looked at it and I said, "Wow. Nikole, this is a lot of power." Like, she has this much power that all these well-to-do white folks got together in a little Google document and started typing away to create, to do all this work, and that was my very first response was like, "Wow. This further lets me know that this is incredibly powerful and that she is seen as a threat to the institutions that be." So that's incredible. Thank you. Kind of continuing about your work, right, it's focused on segregation and its impact on marginalized populations. The New York Times recently helped produce Nice White Parents, which highlights a lot of the historic and present resistance to meaningful integration. That also reminds me of the interview you had on This American Life sometime ago. After your years of research, I have two questions, like, kind of back to back. One, does it seem like meaningful integration is possible, and then two, do you believe that integration is necessary to achieve equity?Nikole: Hm. So Nice White Parents is excellent, and Chana Joffe-Walt is the producer I worked with on my This American Life piece on Michael Brown's school district. What I love about it is that she--I mean, I've always said white parents are the most powerful force in any school district, whether they're in those schools or not, and that they often hold school districts hostage. School districts simply won't do certain things because they are so afraid of losing white parents, and I haven't seen anything that has spent that much time really exposing the way that that power operates with white parents who are supposed to be on your side. So if your listeners have not heard that podcast, they definitely should. And I saw some folks who were like, "I don't know if I want to listen to that podcast because I just can't stand to hear another white person who's shocked that racism exists." Chana is not naive, and there's no sense of naivety like, "Oh, my God. I can't believe these white parents are doing this." It's really like, "This is how we operate, and I'm going to expose it." So it's great. To answer your question, so possible and probable of course are two different things. Do I think meaningful integration is possible? Of course it's possible. We've rarely seen it, but it is possible. But in order for it to be possible it has to be--like Baldwin said, like, white people have to give up whiteness, and we also have to understand how much resources [?], everything from amongst private citizens, businesses, local government, state government and federal government went into creating the school inequality, still maintains the school inequality, and then if you're going to undo that and create a truly equitable, integrated school system, you have to apply equal amounts of power and resources, and we won't, right? The reason all of that power and influence was applied was because it was to the benefit of those who hold the power, and they're not going to apply the equal amount of resources in a way that doesn't benefit their power. So possible? Yes. Probable? Of course not. In terms of is it necessary? So in a practical sense absolutely. Nearly every school integration lawsuit that gets filed by Black parents or on behalf of Black parents initially begins as a simple lawsuit about equity and resources. You never see large-scale that Black people are just dying to have their kids in majority white schools, and so these lawsuits typically begin by saying, "Our schools are underfunded. They are not well-resourced, and we are suing because we just want the same resources in our schools as you allot for white schools," and then they begin that way and then they end with a push for integration as parents come to realize that they will never get those resources without white kids, and that's just true. It holds true in every region of the country. It holds true in rural areas, suburban, urban. It doesn't matter. In a country where we still have to assert that Black lives matter, which is really Black lives matter too, we know that the whole point of the separation is to deprive Black kids of resources and equality. The whole point of the separation is to ensure white parents get an inordinate amount of resources, and we just have never shown willingness to ensure that Black kids, and particularly poor Black kids, get the same quality of resources, and integration is the means to do that. There are things that we accept for Black kids that you can't imagine ever accepting for white kids, period, and we don't. So I wish that it wasn't necessary, but we've shown no other way that we're willing to treat Black kids the same as white kids unless they're in the same classrooms, and even then they're not treated the same.Zach: Right, and that leads into my next question. So I mentioned my wife Candis earlier. She's an educator teaching high school, and her district is starting remote. I know you've addressed concerns about the feasibility and effectiveness of remote learning during this time. As both a parent and a journalist who has specialized in equity and in education, what advice do you have for educators who want to provide a quality education from home to their students right now and what considerations do you think they should be keeping in mind?Nikole: God, this is so hard, and the public conversation has tried to make this simple. Zach: Really binary, yeah.Nikole: Yeah. It's either "open the schools" or "it's not safe, we can't open the schools," and either you care about kids' education and the inequality or you want teachers to die, right? This is the hardest thing, because one, we already have these structural inequalities that we have long known existed that are clearly being exacerbated, and there's no great answer. I know how much I struggled as a parent who is highly educated, who has a ton of resources, whose daughter has her own computer, to really implement online learning and the early data and research on the effects, particularly on Black kids, are absolutely devastating, and Black kids have the least wiggle room. They're already the furthest behind, so they have the most to lose. So I don't know what the answers are. I think where my frustration has come is you cannot, as educators, simultaneously say, "It's not safe for us to open schools at all, but I also don't want to be forced to do live instruction." You can't do both of those things. There's got to be compromise, and I think every parent has a newfound understanding for how hard teachers' jobs are as we've had to try to play a bit of that role in our own households, but we're all struggling to adapt to online. I didn't expect that I would be working from home either and having my child set off the fire alarm while I'm giving a talk, which has happened, but we have to really think about what this is going to mean for our kids in school districts that suffered to get proper funding for those kids before the pandemic and now are going to be dealing with slashed budgets, which I guess is my really long way of saying I don't know what the answers are, but I can tell you what is planned right now is gonna be devastating for low income Black and brown kids, and we have shown--I mean, look at the Democratic Convention and the Republican Convention. Nobody's even talking about "What are we gonna do for these kids?" No one's talking about "Okay, we need a massive funding package to ensure that these kids are going to be able to catch up once this is all over, to ensure they have technology, to ensure the internet is gonna be connected, high speed, to their homes." Like, there's no one even talking about this, and I know that what's gonna happen is ultimately we're just gonna have to--those kids are just going to have to deal with it, and they're gonna deal with it by falling further and further behind and being even more disadvantaged after this than they were before.Zach: So, you know, you spoke on something which leads me to my last question. It does seem, both the RNC--well, the DNC for sure from my perspective and as you listen to other folks, like, largely focused on this imaginary or not-so-imaginary white conservative in the quote-unquote middle of America who is debating voting for Donald Trump or not, and it reminds me of--kind of going back to the initial question I had around just the cyclical nature of history--a little while ago we had Dr. Jason Johnson on as a guest, and we talked about that, like, just how history repeats itself, and as we prepare for one of the most consequential elections of our lifetime, do you believe America is truly in a place to not re-elect Donald Trump?Nikole: In a fair election? Yes, but yeah... who knows if we're gonna have a fair election? It does not bode well, but yes, I think in a fair election, yes.Zach: Okay. Mrs. Hannah-Jones, this was phenomenal. Thank you so much for your time.Nikole: Thank you for your persistence, and thanks for having me on the show.Zach: No, God bless. Goodbye.Nikole: All right, bye.Zach: All right, y'all. That was--I mean, my gosh, y'all know what this is. Every single week we're having incredible guests, and this one was, like I said at the top, an honor, a privilege. Really excited. Make sure y'all check us out. Check out all the links in the show notes. Learn more about Nikole Hannah-Jones if you're not familiar, if you've been living under a rock. But the thing about it is, when it comes to Black media, even sometimes Black media posted on huge platforms like The New York Times, we miss it, so I want to make sure y'all check all that out. Make sure y'all check out Nice White Parents. This is not even an ad. I just got love for Nice White Parents. Shout-out to the team over there. And 'til next time, y'all, this has been Zach. Peace.

Zach chats with Kanika Tolver, founder and CEO of Career Rehab LLC and author of Career Rehab: Rebuild Your Personal Brand and Rethink the Way You Work, on this special Saturday episode themed around rehabbing your career. A senior project manager with the U.S. Department of the Treasury, Kanika is no ordinary "social-preneur" - she's a rebel entrepreneur and certified professional coach, a serial innovator who's fueled by an extraordinary commitment to social change and helping others create their own "epic lives." True to her book's name, she outlines the importance of rebuilding your personal brand and rethinking the way you work, and she lists some of the telltale signs she experienced when she realized she needed to undergo a career rehab of her own.Find out more about "Career Rehab: Rebuild Your Personal Brand and Rethink the Way You Work" on Amazon.Connect with Kanika on LinkedIn, Instagram, Facebook and Twitter.Check out her personal website.Donate to the Justice for Breonna Taylor GoFundMe by clicking here.Find out how the CDC suggests you wash your hands by clicking here.Help food banks respond to COVID-19. Learn more at FeedingAmerica.org.Visit our website.TRANSCRIPTZach: What's up, y'all? It's Zach with Living Corporate. Now, look, man, y'all know what it is. We're coming to y'all with real, authentic conversations every single week. So we're having these conversations talking about that real real, okay? We're having conversations that center underrepresnted, marginalized, underestimated, oppressed voices, experiences and lived identities in the workplace, and today is no different, man. We have a great guest. Her name is Kanika Tolver. Kanika Tolver is no ordinary socialpreneur. She's a highly decorated information technology federal government professional, rebel entrepreneur and certified professional coach and a serial innovator who's fueled by an extraordinary commitment to social change and helping others create their own epic lives, not to mention she's the CEO and founder of Career Rehab in Washington, D.C. Career Rehab focuses on assisting career transitions and transformations for students, professionals and retirees. Her company provides career coaching programs, events, webinars, and digital resources to help people reach their goals. She's the acclaimed author of Career Rehab: Rebuild Your Professional Brand and Rethink the Way You Work. In that book and in the conversation today we're going to be talking about, amongst a wide array of things, what's holding you back from taking the next step in your career. She's been featured on CNN, CNBC, CBS Radio, Yahoo, Glassdoor, Black Enterprise, Entrepreneur, The Washington Post--she's been all over the place, you know what I'm saying? So without further ado, welcome, Kanika. What's going on, now?Kanika: What's going on?Zach: All right, so look, I read the bio, but let's talk about, like, the why behind the career coaching and things that you do and really how you transitioned from tech and the public sector and, like, this social entrepreneur work that you're doing now. Like, how did that come together?Kanika: It came together because I was just really at a place where I felt alone at work, and I felt like, you know, I was growing professionally and I was making a lot of money, but I really felt like I wasn't being my true, authentic self, and I really wanted to help people. Like, I wanted to help people get to the places that I was able to reach in my career, and not having a lot of support at work just kind of--you know, my passion was doing career coaching and helping people with resumes and stuff like that, so that's kind of how I moved into the career development space. Zach: So then let's talk about, like, what were some of the key differences as you transitioned from working in the public sector, doing tech work to now going into personal career coaching? Kanika: I mean, I still work in the technology industry for the federal government, so I still have my day job as a federal government employee, but what it kind of looks like as far as being an entrepreneur and having a full-time job, it's pretty much me kind of been just building my career coaching clientele over the last three to four years. So I started off as a resume writer. I was helping people get a lot of good federal government job, a lot of good, high-paying tech jobs 'cause I was already in the industry, so I kind of started to do that and I started to kind of market myself online, and then I kind of transitioned into wanting a book deal and wanting to be an author and wanting to showcase a lot of the clients that had success with me in my book, but also I wanted to make sure that I was telling a true story of, you know, how my career life has gone for the past 10 years. I've had my own personal challenges. So that's where Career Rehab kind of came into play, 'cause I felt like we all need career innovations. You know, we all need to take our career to the next level in some way, so. Zach: You're absolutely right. I also think it's easy--when you consider, like, the history of America and, like, progress for Black and brown folks in the workplace, of course Black and brown people had jobs in corporate-like settings before the '60s, but when you talk about that, like, real influx, we really haven't been largely represented but for some less than, like, 50 something odd years, and we've only had all of our rights on paper--on paper--since, like, 1965, so... when you think about that, like, you and I, we're like the first generation of folks born with all of our rights--or we're the second generation. It gets kind of hairy, right, 'cause you think about, like, really Gen X, they're the first generation of people who were coming into the professional space with all of their rights on paper, and even still today, right, there are still folks who are, you know, 30 or in their late 20s who are first-generation professionals, folks who graduated from college. So when you think about, like, career rehab, the concept of career rehab or just needing to, like, really assess where you're at and what you're doing, those things--that's a novel concept for a lot of people who really just started getting into this space, you know what I mean?Kanika: I agree. I think me being more of a millennial, I think the Gen X'ers, they were the ones that really set the tone for, you know, helping to establish good--I would say the baby boomers established work ethic, right, being loyal to jobs. That's my parents' generation, and then you have the Gen X'ers who they started to get educated, they started to get jobs, but the millennials I think are the game-changing generation because we wanted more than just the education and the job. We want passionate work. We want work that matters. We want people to know our worth, and I think that Gen X'ers were a little bit more like "I'ma just do what I'm told to do and this is my job, I got it, I got my papers, I got my college degree, I got my education," but they didn't really rock the boat the way millennials and the newer generations are rocking the boat within the workplace. Zach: No, I agree with that. I think it's interesting because when you look at, like, the research that continues to come out, and then you look at social media that continues to, like, really be a game changer in terms of democratizing information and making things just really accessible, when you talk about just the reality of inequity, right, when you talk about, like, from pay inequity to opportunities to promote and rise within the ranks, to hiring and, like, the exclusivity of some of these social circles and how a lot of even these technology pipelines and things like that are really closed off. I do believe that we're in a different generation now than we were, you know, 15 or 20 years ago where we just didn't--people knew, but now we know we know, you know what I mean?Kanika: Right, yep.Zach: So when you talk about, like, career rehab and rebuilding your personal brand and rethinking the way you work, like, can we talk about some of the core tenets of that? Like, what does that mean, and where were you in your career that made you say, "I need a rehab?" Like, what were some of the telltale signs that you needed to rehab? Kanika: So rebuilding your personal brand was kind of, like, for me at a point where I was leaving my good federal government job to go into private sector, and I was scared. I was like, "Oh, my gosh. Like, I've been in the federal government space. This is comfortable," and I went to go work for a company by the name of Deloitte. I didn't know anything about the company, so I had to rebuild my personal brand as far as my resume and my LinkedIn profile to be able to talk the talk of private sector, because the government talks totally different than private sector. So that was a time where I was really going through a transition of being unhappy in my government job, and I was like, you know, "I have to rebrand myself if I'm gonna be able to get into a very innovative company. I'm gonna have to shift the way my brand has been looking as far as my resume and as far as, like, my LinkedIn profile." So that was kind of how I started to shift my mindset about how I thought about personal branding, because in government you just don't think about personal branding like that, right? You think about "This is a good government job, and I worked for this, and I'ma be here for 30 years," and my family and my aunties and my mom, everybody pretty much around me, was like, "Get a good government job," and I'm like, "This is not even really necessarily me, but I'm gonna do it." So that's kind of the shift that happened in my personal career.Zach: So let's continue to talk about this. I'm trying to understand when we talk about rethinking what it is you need or really what you want out of your career, like, what would you say are some of the biggest kind of, like, traps or patterns in your coachees that you see that lets you know that they need to be coached or that they need some help?Kanika: Rethinking the way that you work is a career mindset shift, because so often we don't really focus in on talking about, like, getting paid now, getting the money, power and respect. That's one of the things I coach people on, is it's not just about getting the job offer, it's about getting the money, power and respect, and the power and respect comes into play when you become a subject matter expert. You have the power and respect to be marketable. I think a lot of times in our community of people of color we just get so validated by "Oh, I'ma get this, like, nice-paying job," that we still don't get the power and respect at work, so that's a mindset shift. Another mindset shift that I see, that I have even applied to myself and even applied to my coaching clients, is things like "commute's worth the coins." It's okay to have a realistic commute. It's okay to ask for remote options from home. I think we so often are scared to ask for the work-life balance component of things in the workplace, and it has made us feel like we kind of, like, have a slavery mentality towards the job instead of the job offering us the things that we need in order to have balance.Zach: Yeah, and I think that also comes though from, like, a very real fear of loss, right? Like, you know, the system that we live in today, you need money to survive, and if you have people who maybe they've interviewed at fifty 'leven jobs and this is finally the job that said yes, it's hard to then, if you see you making those requests as a risk to keeping your job and then by relation keeping your lights on, you know, it's tough, right? So it's kind of like, you know, when you talk about that self-assessment to understand how to ask and then even facing those fears of asking. Like, what does it look like for the people that you talk to to help them get over some of the fears that they have in advocating for themselves?Kanika: I think one thing that I want to touch on when we talk about personal branding is that we have to continue to try to the best of our ability to align our personal brand of who we are as individuals with an employer brand that will make us feel like we feel good about this job situation, right? So it's important that when we're looking for jobs and interviewing for jobs that if there are things on our list that we desire to have in addition to our annual salary, if it's work-life balance, if it's paid time off, if it's remote options from home, I think it's important to do research on the job just as much as they're doing research on you as you come into interview with them. I think we apply blindly and we go on job interviews blindly not really looking at all of the other things that the job may or may not offer from a culture perspective or from a benefits perspective.Zach: And so then what does it look like to, like, assess a company to make sure that their personal brand does align with yours? Like, how does one go about that type of research?Kanika: So that type of research can happen through websites like Glassdoor.com. You can also--what I've done and what I've coached my clients to do is it's important to reach out to--what I usually do in the past is I reached out to Black and brown folks that worked at the company and I connected with them on LinkedIn and I either, you know, had a Zoom call with them or coffee chat or we met up for lunch, or we just talked on the phone, and I just wanted to get their insight on how the company culture is for them and how things have been working out for them, 'cause sometimes Glassdoor, it has some good, consistent information about the companies, but it's also good to talk to the people that already work for the company.Zach: Absolutely. I have folks hit me up on LinkedIn, Black and brown folks hit me up often. Let me, like, not even exaggerate. Like, a lot. A lot asking me about "I know that you work here now," you know, "Would you recommend this being a place for me?" What would be your recommendation or advice on how to ask and how to network, you know, in terms of asking people who currently work there and, like, how to reach out? What are some of the best practices for you?Kanika: Some of the best practices for me have been just developing a standard direct message template through LinkedIn and introducing yourself. The first thing you want to do is edify them, edify their profile, make them feel good, make them feel comfortable for them coming in to talk to you as a stranger. So I try to make the person that I'm interviewing like, "Oh, hey. I see you work at This Company and I see you have an awesome profile and you're an expert at this particular subject," and then I go in and I say, "Well, hey, I just wanted to reach out to you just to connect with you to see how you've been enjoying the company, and I'm interested in applying or I have applied to X job, and I would love to chat with you to see how your experience has been." So I try to send out maybe close to 10 messages, because not everybody's gonna respond back. Some people are scared to talk about company culture with a stranger, and some people just don't care--some people just don't really use LinkedIn and they don't respond, and a lot of people would be willing to share their experiences, and I try to get a diverse perspective. So I don't just say, "Let me just reach out to all the Black folks." I'm looking to reach out to a diverse set of people. So, you know, Asian, white, Black, female, male, you know what I mean? So I don't get just one perspective.Zach: Right, right. So let's talk a little bit about your work with [?] and your work with Entrepreneur, right? Like, how did you create that relationship, and what does it look like to maintain that, and how does it help the work that you do today?Kanika: I pretty much got a book deal with Entrepreneur a year ago, probably maybe December 2018ish I should say. Maybe a little bit over a year ago, but going into 2019 I got a book deal, and that relationship is really good. I was pretty much trying to get a book deal for a while with Career Rehab. Career Rehab actually got turned down by a lot of other publishers. So Career Rehab was pitched to Entrepreneur. They loved the idea. At first they had a lot of--if anybody knows Entrepreneur's brand and their magazine, they have a lot more entrepreneur, business-based authors on their roster, so they were looking for opening up an arena for more career topic-type authors, so I came in right on time for this particular time that they were looking for people, and they were looking for more minority women authors because Entrepreneur has a lot of white male authors. So that's kind of how that relationship happened. I got on the phone with them. I pitched them the idea. They really liked it. We started writing in January 2019, and then the book came out a year after that, this year, 2020. So it was a really good relationship. What I like about the platform and I like about what they're allowing me to do is they're allowing me to re-use a lot of the Career Rehab content in the book through articles. We're gonna be doing webinars. They're also allowing me to highlight other things that I want to talk about, like we featured Minda Harts. We're featuring Netta Jenkins with Dipper. So I'm using the platform to also highlight us in a way. You get it? So I'm using mainstream media, things that they've never seen from an African-American woman who's an author, but I'm saying, let's shed light on all of these awesome people that I know in my network as well.Zach: Yeah, I'm just really honored, you know what I'm saying, that you came on our platform to talk about your book, to talk about just some basic tenets on some of the things we don't know and how we build, and I do think I talk to folks--'cause I'm 30 years old, and most millennials, at this point they've been at their jobs for at least 5 or 6 years, right? Like, they've been working for 5 or 6 years, and a lot of us, we'll get hired somewhere after we do undergrad and then we do grad school, a lot of us will then be at our jobs for, like, 5 or 6--and those of us who didn't do any type of post-grad, you know, we've been working for 7, 8 years, you know, if not a little bit longer, and so I think it's important for us as we look at a new decade, like, what does it look like to do an assessment and make a determination of "Am I really where I need to be, and if not, what does it look like for me to create a path either at my current employer or to seek opportunities elsewhere?" Before we let you go--this has been a dope conversation--let's get some shout-outs in here. Where can people learn about you? I want you to plug your stuff. And then any parting words you have for us.Kanika: You definitely can find the Career Rehab book on Amazon.com. You can find me KanikaTolver.com. I'm pretty much on Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, LinkedIn all @KanikaTolver. Those are my handles. They're all pretty much the handle, KanikaTolver. And, you know, you can just find me on, like, a lot of other podcast shows. I've done a lot of interviews, so yeah.Zach: Man, I appreciate you. Kanika, this has been fire. Y'all, this has been Zach. You've been on the Living Corporate podcast. You know, we everywhere, okay? You can check us out on Google or whatever your search engine is. Firefox, you know? What's another one... Edge?Kanika: Chrome. Safari.Zach: Chrome, whatever, you know what I'm saying? You out there. Just Google us - Living Corporate. You know, we out here, but if you're into domains, living-corporate--please say the dash--dot com, and then we're also at livingcorporate.co, livingcorporate.us, livingcorporate.net, livingcorporate dot... shoot, all of the livingcorporates except for livingcorporate.com 'cause Australia owns livingcorporate.com, okay? So when y'all go to livingcorporate.com and y'all see corporate apartment rentings, don't be like "What happened?" No, I told y'all. It's living DASH corporate dot com, please say the dash, or you can do livingcorporate dot any other thing besides .com and we're gonna pop up, okay? Now, make sure you follow us on Twitter @LivingCorp_Pod or Instagram @LivingCorporate, and, you know, our DMs are wide open. If you have a question, a listener letter, you want to send in something for us to read on the show, we can do that. Until next time, this has been Zach. You've been listening to Kanika Tolver, CEO and author of Career Rehab, VIP entrepreneur with Entrepreneur, career coach, speaker, educator, technology consultant professional. 'Til next time, y'all. Peace.

Zach sits down with Ken Miller, CEO of Nasco Healthcare, and they talk about being an executive while Black, COVID-19, and advice around navigating corporate America on this special Monday episode.Connect with Ken on LinkedIn.Donate to the Justice for Breonna Taylor GoFundMe by clicking here.Find out how the CDC suggests you wash your hands by clicking here.Help food banks respond to COVID-19. Learn more at FeedingAmerica.org.Check out our website.TRANSCRIPTZach: What's up, y'all? It's Zach with Living Corporate, and wow. You know, I'm recording this on May 27th, and it's challenging times, right? You know, we talk about Living Corporate being a platform that amplifies and centers marginalized voices at work, and one thing about--I'm gonna just speak from a Black perspective--is that we say that being Black is exhausting, like, that's a common phrase you'll hear, like, on Twitter and stuff. Black people say it, and we'll say it also in conversation, like, "Being Black is exhausting," but the reality is being Black is incredible. It's the systems of oppression, and that's cultural, that's political, that's legal, that's legislative, that's economic, that's judicial, that's... like, these systems come together and make being Black exhausting, and so I come to you today, you know, I'm excited, I'm thankful to be here, and I'm thankful wherever you are. I see you. I appreciate you. You're loved and you're supported. You know, we exist to really be a space, a digital oasis if you will, of encouragement and affirmation, and so we do that on this platform by having real talk in a corporate world. We interview CEOs. We interview executives and entrepreneurs and authors and activists, scholars, authors, all types of folks, really tackling perspectives from marginalized experiences and marginalized identities, marginalized meaning underestimated, underrepresented, under-supported, and we do that every week, and today is no different, y'all. We have Ken Miller. Ken Miller is, man, one of the few CEOs we've had on the platform. I just want to actually get right into it. Ken, welcome to the show. How are you doing?Ken: I'm doing fantastic, Zach. Thank you so much for having me.Zach: Oh, man. I have to ask, you know, how are you and your family doing during this time?Ken: As you said, these are very, very difficult times, challenging for all of us. In fact, you know, this COVID-19 crisis has truly impacted my family. Unfortunately I lost my grandmother to COVID-19. I lost my uncle to COVID-19. My mother-in-law tested positive and is now in the hospital. So this pandemic is truly impacting all of us, in particular my family and moreover people of color around the world, and we gotta do everything we can to try to get this thing under control, Zach.Zach: Absolutely. You know, I want to get right into it, right? Every now and then, like, I'll read this huge bio for folks, right, but I really want to give you space to talk to us a little bit about yourself, talk about your company, your background, and just what you want folks to know about you.Ken: Yeah, for sure. I come from very humble beginnings. I grew up in Westchester County in New York City in a very small town called Greenberg, New York, and growing up in Greenberg, we all grew up like family, and I was fortunate enough to have a very tight network of family and friends that really supported me in my development, made sure that I did everything I had to do academically as well as build some decent athletic skills. And I was fortunate enough to go to college. In fact, I was the first member of my family to go to a four-year university and actually graduate, and fortunately enough I was able to get into school via football, but while there I grew a passion for academics and ultimately wanting to make a difference. You know, I was fortunate enough to jump into the healthcare industry shortly after undergrad where I just continued to progress, be given more and more responsibility. I had a network of leaders that supported me along the way in my development, continued to challenge me and give me new opportunities, and throughout this journey that's been over 30 years I've been fortunate enough to lead organizations here in the U.S. for major Fortune 100 companies like Pharmacia Pfizer, like Roche Labs, like Novo Nordisk. I even had the opportunity to serve as an ex-patriot in Basel, Switzerland for about two and a half years while with Roche Labs, and I believe that that journey, those experiences, actually prepared me to take on more of a leadership role in healthcare, and currently I am the president and CEO of Nasco Healthcare. We are a healthcare company focused on the development of simulation training solutions for first responders, such as folks who are in the frontlines right now fighting COVID-19, nurses and doctors, to ensure that they build the skills so that they are ready to meet the needs of patients however they present themselves, and so I'm very happy and excited to be on this podcast with you, talk to you a little bit about my background and my journey, but the long and short of it is, Zach, that I come from humble beginnings and I feel very fortunate and thankful to be in this role today to try to make a difference in healthcare. Zach: You know, let's talk about your role. You're the second Black male CEO we've had on the show. I'm curious to get your perspective on what you would say are the biggest factors that have led you to the seat that you're at in Nasco today.Ken: Yeah, absolutely. I would say that it is 1. my faith, as well as my support network, that has led me here. You know, trusting in God, trying to be the best person that I can be, living my life with integrity I think has positioned me well to take on this opportunity. And then having a strong support network. My wife, she's my #1 champion. She's always in my corner. She always helps me make good decisions, as well as my broader network of family members and friends who coach me along the way. I think those two elements have prepared me to be here as CEO and president. Don't get me wrong - I was very fortunate to go to a four-year school, get my undergrad education. I went and got my MBA from the University of Chicago, one of the best business schools in the world. I've worked all around the globe, so I've had great experiences, and I think that those things coupled with the first two points that I made have absolutely prepared me to take on this type of leadership role, Zach.Zach: I'm curious, especially during times like these, and we're coming up right after this whole Amy Cooper situation and the continual just brutalization of Black bodies that continues to be broadcasted on, like, major media platforms... I'm just a manager, but even I as a manager, I feel like my safety net has gotten smaller and smaller as I've progressed in my career. Am I overstating the pressure to succeed as a Black male CEO and, like, the small degree or the lack of grace that you may have the higher up you get? Am I overstating that?Ken: No, not at all, Zach. I do believe that our circles are getting smaller, and the challenges of assuming these leadership roles for men of color are even more and more difficult.Zach: So let's talk about that. How do you manage that stress for you? Like, how do you manage the stress of having to constantly be on your Ps and Qs? What does that look like for you? Ken: Yeah, absolutely. Let me come to the stress element second. Let me start with how to get there, okay? One is you've got to have to an unwavering belief in yourself. This makes me reflect back when I was in third grade, and my third grade teacher seeing me as a Black boy in class tried to put me in a remedial reading group, and my mom was not having it, Zach. My mom marched up to the school and she told that teacher, "There's absolutely nothing wrong with him. He has all of the capabilities as any other kid. All you've got to do is put him in the position and challenge him and hold him accountable." From that moment on, I committed myself to being my absolute best, to having a commitment to excellence in everything in which I do, and so that brings me back to this unwavering confidence and belief in yourself and never giving up, Zach, and I think that if you do that you will achieve your greatest opportunities. You will fulfill your greatest opportunities. Now let me get to your question about the stress, right? You know, listen, obviously being president and CEO comes with a number of pressures. It's a 24 hours a day, 7 day a week job. You're never off. There's always a flood or a fire that you've got to deal with. There's always a great opportunity that needs your input to lean on, to pursue. So it's 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. I think that early on when I assumed this role it was far more challenging and far more stressful because I didn't have the experiences and I reacted to each individual situation with everything. I think that what I've learned, Zach, is to treat triumph and disaster as the true impostor of which it is. I try not to get too high when things are going great. I try not to get too low when things are going poorly. Second aspect of it is that I realize through my career to be successful it's going to take a team, therefore I try to gain organizational alignment and input and have strong trust and agreement among my team, because I know what it's gonna take to win is that it's gonna take the collective effort of all of us working together to achieve our aim or overcome any individual challenge. As a result of that, I think that I'm managing the stress much, much better. Because I don't get too high or too low, as well as because I lean on the capabilities and strengths of my teammates, recognizing that I don't have to take it on all on my own, that there are others that are in this with me to help me solve these challenges.Zach: What does it look like for you to navigate white fragility and build relationships and coalitions of trust with folks that don't look like you, considering where you sit as an executive?Ken: Hey, that's tough, right? You know, it's much easier for us to connect and bond with those that look like us, talk like us, walk like us. It's far easier. But at the same time, that's not the world or the environment in which I work in, right? It never has been, from the minute I walked into corporate America. I've always been surrounded by predominantly Caucasian males and to some degree Caucasian females, very few minorities. And so what I've learned to do throughout my career is find my authentic self, Zach. Be me. Be the best Kenny that Kenny can be and always present that to others, and I think that with me being authentic and genuine I connect better with others, as well as I can have more candid, open and honest conversations about things that are working and things which are not working. Sometimes, you know, my culture--listen, I'm a little direct, you know? I'm a little forward, but I want to make sure that we're having the real conversation and we're not sweeping any issues or concerns under the rug. And so with doing that I think that I've built really strong, long-lasting, trusting relationships with those which I've worked with. If you ever look on my Twitter or LinkedIn or Facebook page, you'll see all of my colleagues throughout my 30-year career who are still my friends, who still recognize me for having a contribution in their development and helping them to progress and get to where they are today, and many of them are my Caucasian counterparts.Zach: Let's talk a little bit about Nasco and your journey in healthcare and, like, why this industry specifically.Ken: You know, it's very interesting. Zach, when I came out of undergrad graduating from the University of Albana in 1990, I just wanted to get a high-paying job, you know? So I wanted to get paid, so I jumped out and accepted a role down on Wall Street with Morgan Stanley. You know, I could see my future. I thought I'd be living the high life like The Wolf on Wall Street, but I quickly realized after a short six months in that industry that, although I was succeeding, I was growing, I was learning, I wasn't being fulfilled or personally rewarded, and so I got recruited by a pharmaceutical company and ultimately accepted that role, and I immediately began to flourish, and what I found was that I was able to do good while doing good, and what I mean by that is I was able to grow professionally, be successful, achieve my professional goals and aims, but at the same time I was able to bring healthcare solutions to physicians and nurses that were ultimately on the frontlines of impacting and saving people's lives, and from that I was tremendously rewarded. So throughout my 30-year career I have, with all of my passion, jumped into the deep end with these communities, whether it be the diabetes community, whether it be the psychiatric community, whether it be the simulation and training community of frontline healthcare workers, because I truly believe that the work in which I've done over my 30-year plus career and even to this day is really making a difference in helping to ultimately save lives and make our communities even better.Zach: So we're in extraordinary times. Can we talk a little bit about how Nasco's business is adapting to the market and challenges presented by COVID-19?Ken: Yeah, this is a very challenging time, Zach, and for us we've tried to modify and adjust our business to these times. First and foremost, the number one thing is to keep everyone safe, both the associates that work within Nasco Healthcare as well as their family and friends and the communities in which they live. So what we've first done is that we've enabled as many associates within the organization that have the ability to work from home to work from home. For all of those who are essential and critical to maintaining our business on a day-to-day basis within the building, we've instituted all of the normal social distancing measures, staying 6 feet apart, having mask requirements, limiting vendors into the corporate facilities, putting our manufacturing associates on staggered shifts to limit the bringing together in common areas like lunch rooms and break areas. We disinfect the entire facility from top to bottom four times a day, as well as we've put extra care into disinfecting all of our products as they are being shipped out of the building and ultimately arriving at our customers. So safety is the #1 priority. In terms of meeting the demands and the needs of the markets in this changing time, we've created more remote learning solutions. So we've partnered with universities, healthcare systems and governments around the world to create simulation training solutions that can be delivered digitally online so that healthcare professionals can continue to get certified and trained so that they are ready and prepared to meet the challenges of this pandemic. The last thing that we've done is that we've ramped up the production of our life-saving solutions, specifically our CPR solutions, our intubation heads, as well as our patient communication simulators that aid healthcare professionals in diagnosing COVID-19 during this crisis. Zach: And, you know, I'm hearing the parameters and the measures that you're taking. I'm curious, with that in mind, and as we look at--you know, folks are saying that this may be going on until, like, next year. You know, when you look at the next 18 months, what are you most excited about with Nasco?Ken: Yeah. I'm really excited about our ability to be able to take training from the classroom and take it into the home. With our digital remote learning solutions, I think that we have the ability to really help healthcare and first responders to be ready to 1. navigate through this crisis as well as be better prepared in the future. As well, we are ramping up our production of COVID-19 simulation solutions so that... and I shouldn't say just COVID-19 simulation solutions, Zach, but pandemic response simulation solutions so that once we conquer this pandemic and we use these solutions, we'll be much better prepared for those in the future. I think if there's one thing that we learned from the COVID-19 crisis is that we were not ready. We were not prepared as a nation or as a globe, and so I believe that our local, state and federal government leaders have clearly identified how woefully unprepared we were. So at Nasco Healthcare, our aim and our goal is to ensure that everyone be ready, and so we are building those life-saving solutions that help first responders and healthcare professionals be ready when the time comes. So whether it be to diagnose a patient during this crisis, whether it be to train a respiratory specialist on how to put someone on a ventilator, or to be able to resuscitate a patient that's in cardiac arrest that's right by the bedside or on the side of a car accident. All of these solutions we believe we will be coming forward with over the next 12-18 months that show a very bright future for Nasco Healthcare, and we ultimately hope to help the community be better prepared in the future. Zach: So before we let you go, what advice do you have to the marginalized professionals, especially now, in the workplace?Ken: Yeah. Well, I'm one of those marginalized professionals in the workplace, and so the first thing I would recommend is to believe in yourself. Never allow anyone to steal your confidence. That's #1. Have an unwavering belief in yourself. Two, commit yourself to excellence. Do the absolute best you can do at whatever you are doing. My mom taught me at a very young age that if you're gonna clean a bathtub or clean a toilet, scrub it until it shines, you know? Give it your best. Give it your all. Third is to build your network, right? Find individuals that you believe that you can learn from and ask questions. Be inquisitive. And last but not least is you've got to get up every day, right? You've got to get up every day and commit yourself to doing all that you can to grow. I think that there's one thing that I want the marginalized associate to remember, and one of my leaders taught me this a few years back in my career, Linda [?], one of my fondest leaders in my career, and what Linda told me was, "Ken, you might feel like you've got your back against the wall and there's only one way out of this situation, but remember, there are hundreds of options. You just have to down-select to the option that you think is most attractive for you." So Zach, for that marginalized associate, the last thing I'd want them to remember is that you've got many, many options to succeed. Don't believe there's only one path to your success. But choose a path and then get on that road, and if you find yourself deviating, course-correct, but stay focused, stay committed, continue to believe in yourself and I'm confident that you will achieve your goals and your aims. Chase your dreams. Never give up.Zach: You know, Ken, I gotta tell you, I appreciate your energy, man. Before we let you go, any shout-outs?Ken: I would just like to thank you, Zach, for allowing me the opportunity to be a part of this podcast. I'd like to thank Tina Chang and the pioneering collective for the work in which they do on my behalf, and I would just like to thank all of my friends and family who have supported me throughout my career that have allowed me to get to where I am now. I would just pray that everyone stay safe and stay healthy, and I'm wishing all of you and your families, you know, positivity as you navigate through this COVID-19 pandemic.Zach: All right, Ken. Thank you so much. Y'all, this has been Zach. You've been listening to the Living Corporate podcast. We do this every single Tuesday. Make sure you check us out. We're all over Barack Obama's internet, okay? So if you type in Living Corporate we will pop up, okay? Make sure you check us out on Twitter @LivingCorp_Pod and on Instagram @LivingCorporate. Until next time, you've been talking to Ken Miller, CEO of Nasco--CEO and president of Nasco Healthcare. Peace.

Zach has the pleasure of sitting down with Mandy Price, co-founder and CEO of Kanarys, to have a conversation centered around the concepts of dissidence and technology. They take a deep dive into both, spotlighting what has changed in part due to recent tragic events, and Mandy talks a bit about the genesis of Kanarys and what initially got her into this line of work.Connect with Mandy on LinkedIn!Check out Kanarys.com.Connect with Kanarys on LinkedIn, Twitter, IG and Facebook.Donate to the Justice for Breonna Taylor GoFundMe by clicking here.Find out how the CDC suggests you wash your hands by clicking here.Help food banks respond to COVID-19. Learn more at FeedingAmerica.org.Check out our website.TRANSCRIPTZach: What's up, y'all? It's Zach with Living Corporate, and we're here again. It is a Tuesday. That's why you're listening to my voice and why you're gonna be listening to a very dope conversation that we have with our guest today. As you know, Living Corporate--or maybe you don't know because, you know, maybe this is your first time listening, but for those who are first-time listeners, Living Corporate is a platform that centers and amplifies marginalized voices at work. We do this by having real talk in a corporate world by having conversations with black and brown thought leaders, movers and shakers, executives, influencers, whoever, taking fairly evergreen topics, but centering them around marginalized perspectives and experiences. And so with that being said, we have a really special guest, very excited to have her on the platform, Mandy Price. Mandy Price is the CEO and co-founder of the Dallas-based Kanarys Inc., a web platform that incorporates data and AI to foster diversity, equity and inclusion in the workplace. Mandy, welcome to the show. How are you doing? How are you feeling?Mandy: I'm doing great. How are you, Zach? It's so good to be here with you today.Zach: It's a pleasure to be with you as well. You know what? I'm doing well, because, you know, like we talked about very briefly off mic, you know, my daughter is beautiful. She's getting bigger and bigger every day. My wife is strong and in good spirits, and I'm doing okay. I'm thankful for the immediate things around me and the fact that there's peace in my immediate vicinity. At the same time I'm tired, right? I'm exhausted, and I look at the news and I look at, you know, the continued brutalization of people that look like us, and that's tiring, you know?Mandy: It's extremely tiring. It's traumatic. It's draining. You know, sometimes I struggle with the words to express my emotions because they're so full, and it's very, very difficult, but the one thing that is encouraging to me and my team and I'm sure to you and many others that have fought for marginalized voices to be heard more is that the discussions are starting to change. No longer are we kind of just looking at the systems. People are starting to talk about the disease. "How do we rid out the disease?" And we know that the issues that we see in corporate America and really the systemic inequities that we see throughout our society, because it's not just in corporate America, we see it in education, we see it in healthcare, obviously the criminal justice system. It's pervasive throughout our country, and we know that these kinds of surface level policies, be it in corporate America or any other setting, aren't gonna work, that we have to do the hard work, that we have to look at these issues from a systemic basis, and so as I hear people talking about institutional racism, systemic inequities, I'm encouraged, more encouraged than I've been in a long time, because often when we're in D&I circles I felt that we were speaking two different languages, you know? I've long felt that diversity and inclusion was about justice and fairness, that that's what people wanted, they wanted to work in a work environment that they knew was fair and that they would actually have a chance to succeed in that work environment and there weren't these barriers where they're not gonna get the same type of job assignments, their pay wasn't gonna be fair, they weren't gonna have the same promotion opportunities, and I think people are starting to think about D&I through that lens, which we have long advocated, as opposed to thinking of it from a programmatic sense, which is what we see so much in corporate D&I, which is "We're going to create environments--" Which are important, I don't want to take away fom that, but so much of the work was "We're going to celebrate Black History Month or Pride Month or these different kind of celebrations," and not to me really looking and doing the really, really hard work of "Are our systems, our policies, our procedures perpetuating these inequities that exist within our workplace?"Zach: I agree with you, and I think to your point--and I've talked about this a little bit, like, over the past couple of weeks, but the idea that a lot of this corporate D&I stuff, it's talking--1: it puts the effort and blame back on marginalized voices for being marginalized, so it's up to you to adjust your behavior to better assimilate with the white majority so that you're not so marginalized all the time and maybe people forget about the color of your skin because, you know, unconscious bias and then intersectionality, right? Like, it doesn't really--it doesn't come together for anything, and then also the idea of having a bunch of training and activities that don't really tie back into the systems within the organizations themselves. So when folks are saying words like systemic but then not offering systemic solutions, it brings me pause if they actually understand the language that they're using, you know what I mean? Mandy: Absolutely, and like I said, that's why I'm so encouraged by it, right? I think that's what everyone is seeing. We'll see. We are encouraged by the amount of companies [?], more encouraged by the companies that couple those statements with action, you know? There are many organizations that acknowledge that they have work to do [?] [and not?] only were they going to make donations or contributions to groups that are fighting racial inequities externally outside of their organizations, but many organizations have actually acknowledged that they have work to do internally and that they can't just put out this statement, and I think it's up to us to hold them to that, and it's going to help the organizations that are really worried about doing the right thing and the ones that, you know, similar to what we were talking about, the celebrations of Black History Month. "Okay, [?] D&I. We're done." The organizations that simply said, "Okay, it's Blackout Tuesday. We're gonna make our logo black and that's it. We did what we needed to do." People will know the organizations that are serious and are wanting to put in the work.Zach: That's right, and to that point I really want for folks to hear a little bit about the history of Kanarys, 'cause, you know, you've been featured on Crunchbase and Business Insider and Forbes and Afrotech just to name a few, so it's not like you're a stranger out here, but I'd like to hear more about, like, the history of Kanarys and also really the story about your funding, right? Because the amount of funding that you've been able to acquire has been pretty incredible. And so we've been having conversations in the VC space about there continuing to be a more critical lens being put on how little VCs engage black founders and entrepreneurs, and here you are just gathering quite a bit, so I'd love to give you some space for that.Mandy: Yeah. So let me start with the kind of what was the impetus for Kanarys, how did I get into this work. My background is I'm a lawyer by training. I practiced law for 12 years, but during the course of that time, like many black professionals, at first I was volun-told that I was gonna be on the diversity committee, but I had a passion for the work, and as I started to delve further and further in I started to volunteer more, but I think a lot of us, kind of going back to the conversation you had earlier where people of color were the only people of color or African-Americans within that space, it's "Mandy, don't you want to be on the diversity committee?" "Well, I never told you that, but sure." And so that's kind of how the work begun, was, you know, initially doing work on our firm's diversity committee as well as being a part of the ERG for black attorneys and, subsequently later as I moved firms, I also was on my firm's women's task force. And so my background as far as interest in diversity and inclusion goes back to really undergrad, where I did these issues, and the same thing when I was in law school. I worked at the Harvard Civil Rights Project, did a lot of work as well with the Law Review there, the Harvard Civil Rights Civil Liberties Law Review on issues, and so those issues were expansive, and then when I came into the corporate world I really got to see first-hand for myself the pervasive issues that exist within corporate America. And I felt like I was prepared for it. My parents, I think all of us kind of received this kind of training as far as what we need to do, survival skills really as far as to succeed in corporate America, so I was well-equipped, but over time I felt that it was very clear to me that the approaches that we were taking to diversity and inclusion were not going to solve anything on a systemic basis. It was very much, "Well, let me treat you," like you were saying, how to assimilate, how to kind of navigate the firm in a way that it's currently the process is and political structures work," and none of our D&I was really looking at things from an introspective basis. It was all based off of these kind of programs, you know, ERG celebrations and things of that nature, and so we know that we had 50% of women or we knew that our entry-level classes, as far as African-Americans and other people of color, were more diverse [?] people kind of ascended the ranks, but there was never discussion of "Well, why is that? Why is it that the number of black partners is so low?" I remember when I was working at a firm there was a 10-year span before there was a black partner [?], and so that kind of deep critical analysis of "Is there something within our policies that we need to change, that we need to look at as to why we're seeing these discrepancies?" I remember being on a hiring committee where there were discussions of "Well, how do we increase the diversity?" Not, again, looking at "Well, why do we keep losing people?" And I remember broaching the subject of, "Well, why don't we look at HBCUs?" And the immediate response was, "Well, we can't lower our standards." And so it was really clear to me when I looked at the kind of talent that all of the people of color, came from Harvard or Yale or Columbia, that there was these discrepancies even in the way talent was recruited, right, and when you would look at the backgrounds. And so I just started to really think about things on a more structural basis, and I wanted to create a platform where people could talk about these issues in a safe space, because I know conversations that I had in our ERG group were very different than the conversations that were had when leadership was involved, or even to be frank some of the chief diversity officers and things like that. People just felt that if HR or certain kind of leadership in the firm or the organization or the company were involved, then they weren't as free to have these conversations, and so how can we create a safe space where people can talk about these issues in a way where that we could learn from each other but then also really equip the organizations with information that they needed to really understand the structural issues and the everyday lived experiences that their employees were facing. So that's kind of how Kanarys evolved and how we grew the company. When you go to the platform, individuals are able to look at every organization from a D&I lens. Every company has a company profile page. We have around 600 companies that we're tracking data on right now, but we add to that every single month. You can go in and request that your company is one of the ones that we track. And so we look at it from a data and analytics perspective. We know that that is the language of companies, right? If someone kind of goes in and tells their own experience it's obviously real, but a lot of times those individuals are met with defensiveness, resistance, you know, all kinds of "Well, did that really happen?" And so you're going in there trying to prove that your lived experiences are actually something that others are facing within the organization. So it's extremely frustrating, right? You're already dealing with all kinds of microaggressions, and for many people overt racism, right? You know, there's covert and overt, and then to go in and actually try to address it only to be met with more resistance from HR or other leadership within your firm, we know that it's very, very daunting for individuals, so I know that what I had kind of started to do was I wouldn't talk about it with anyone. I just figured that this was the normal course [of how] people of color, especially African-Americans, were treated in the workplace, and I kind of just started to normalize everything, and I think as you look at the current events and the amount of people sharing their stories and--you know, none of the stories seem new to me, you know? It's like--you know, I read stories and I'm like, "Yep, that happened to me. That happened to me too." We just kind of become numb and think, "This is just what it's like," and we normalize it, and I think now we're starting to see people say, "This shouldn't be normal, and we have to speak up and talk about it," because although we, Zach, know as people of color, as African-Americans, our everyday lived experiences, we have to make sure that we amplify those voices and let everyone know that this is how we have to deal in corporate America every single day. And so I think it's more important now than ever, while people are actually looking at this from a systemic and institutional lens, that they know how pervasive this is within their organizations, and that's what we encourage people to do on Kanarys. You know, our platform was created to amplify and share these stories, these voices, so not only can you go to Kanarys and see company D&I policies, we track all things, like I said, from a very detailed data and analytics perspective, so you can see their demographics, how they change, you can see their D&I policies, but you can see stories and look at reviews from other people of color, other marginalized voices that have worked in those work environments, you know? When I was moving from one firm to the next, you know, I looked at all kinds of different platforms that show you culture and reviews and things like that from workplaces, but what stuck out to me was--I was like, "That's great. I'm glad to have happy hours, but what is it gonna be like for ME to work there," right? I knew my experiences were gonna be different, and so the things that I was looking for in an employer were very specific, and so that's why we created the platform, because we know that if you are a person of color, if you're LGBT, if you're disabled, there's certain marginalized voices that have different things that they're gonna want to look at for an employer, and so we provide them with that information and that data so they can really assess, "Is this place going to be open to me? Am I going to have the same opportunities? Am I gonna be able to feel included?" And that's the information we provide on Kanarys.Zach: So one, that's incredible, and I do think that--I've had conversations with folks in the past when it comes to how real change happens within these organizations, and I've had conversations with folks who say, you know, "Do you really think that corporate diversity and inclusion can really drive change, or do you think it's more external?" And I was like, "The reality is I believe that these organizations need external pressures coordinated with some folks internally who have the moral courage to do the right thing." And so I'm curious, as we talk about, like, this new season or this moment--I don't want to say it's a season, but it's certainly a moment because we're about a few weeks in--of folks, like, centering and talking about black experiences and really having to call out racism, and some of them even being bold enough, and right enough, to say "police brutality," do you anticipate an uptick, or have you already seen one, in activity on Kanarys as it pertains to folks sharing their stories and talking about these things?Mandy: So we have started to see an uptick. I think people are realizing that we have to speak up and speak out. Like I said, I think so far, for so long, we have normalized [it], we have just become so accustomed to the way things operated and the ability to see kind of widespread change, which is definitely desired, but it was "How is that gonna happen," right? And I think people realize now the importance of sharing their stories and ensuring that people really do know the day-to-day lived experiences. So we've definitely seen an uptick, but our platform was created for us to share our voices without this kind of muting that we see, especially, you know, on some of the traditional platforms. A lot of times black voices have been censored when they've talked about racism, when they've called out racist behavior, and we wanted to create something that never would mute those voices but would amplify that, because it's so important that we really do show the pervasive nature of the way that racism operates within our society. I think for some people, especially people who aren't black or who have not been marginalized, the way they view racism is very, very different. Racism is seen within this prism of malice or ill will or, you know, very concrete things. "I called someone the N word." That's racist, right? Those discrete actions, but understanding how racism actually presents itself in our society, and I think that we're seeing that--and we've known for a long time--there's been a disconnect, but I think the more we share these stories, it helps bring that enlightment to "Wow, I did not realize that someone's everyday experiences really have racism manifested [?] in every aspect of your life," and so I think we're seeing the importance of that, even though it's our normal, everyday life and we're like, "Well, of course. This has been like this for centuries," that's coming and taking on more of an importance, and one of the things that we do on the platform, because we know leaders talk through measurements and data, is we aggregate all of the responses, and we show them where there's statistical anomalies so that people can see the trends and the evidence where we're like, "Well, you know, this is just not statistically possible if there's not racism present," right? That's kind of what happens on the back end later once organizations go really, really far and maybe they're presented with some kind of class action litigation or things of that sort. People actually start doing the work, budget analysis, and looking at it, but that's what we do, we work with the companies on the data and say, you know, "What we're seeing in trends is there's some systemic issues within your organization, and so let's start proactively working on that now." So we're, like I said, very encouraged by what we're seeing, but I do think it's gonna take this push-pull, this not only working on things internally but all of us have to externally push organizations as well to know that this is important, that we're not gonna accept "check the box" or just the kind of marketing materials that we see sometimes, you know? "This is our D&I report." No, we're gonna say "These are our real experiences." It might not be all polished, but it's important that people know what it's really like and which organizations are taking it seriously to really create those atmospheres of true inclusion, equity and fairness.Zach: And so, you know, what I'm really curious about right now is as you're having these conversations, and even historically before this moment, have you noticed a certain level of fragility when you actually bring these stories and experiences and things back to the organizations and say, "Hey, look, this is what people are saying about you"? Are they fairly receptive? I would anticipate that there's a certain level of defensiveness, but I'm curious as to what your experience has been.Mandy: Traditionally there has been defensiveness, you know? There are companies that are more open than others, but overwhelmingly what we have seen is the desire to kind of hide anything that could be perceived as negative, and I think what companies are realizing is that people know things aren't perfect because they live 'em, you know? They live the experiences, so they know that there are issues, so they're not wanting, you know, this kind of sanitized view of what it's like to work there. They want to know that you have a commitment to do the hard work and to make the changes, and so that's what we've been, you know, like I said, talking about, just like you've been talking about the systemic nature of these issues for a long time, we've been talking about it for a long time and getting folks to realize that D&I is not marketing. It is not painting this pretty picture.Zach: It's not, right?Mandy: [laughs] It's not marketing, right, and so I think that there are organizations willing to do the hard work, but we've had many conversations that when we say, "This is what people are saying about your work environment. This is how your employees feel," and their response is, "How can we tie this with a bow and try to make it look pretty for people?" And so I think that's what organizations are beginning to see, is we don't want the pretty bows, we want the commitment, and we want the uncomfortable conversations, and we want people to lean into this work and say, "We're willing to look and really look at the disease and not the symptoms that we've all seen for years and years and years." We all know that the representation of blacks and other underrepresented groups is abysmal in corporate America. We know that talent does not reside in one demographic. So we've been seeing the symptoms for a long time. Anyone should have been able to look and say, and organizations right now should be able to look in there, into their workforce, and say "Wow, it's kind of amazing that all of our senior and mid-level management is of one demographic." That is a warning sign that there is something amiss within your organization. And for some reason I think it is, like, the prevalance of white supremacy, just like we said earlier, the way that people view racism is from a kind of altered lens. When we talk in those terms not everyone is envisioning the same thing. I think the same thing when we talk about white supremacy. I think some people envision the KKK, you know? So there's different kind of how we talk [?] on different levels of the D&I journey. There's definitely different levels that people are on as far as their consciousness of how these terms, what these meanings, how they permeate themselves in our society. So we know white supremacy isn't simply, you know, "I'm a member of the KKK," or that kind of white supremacy that I think sometimes people think when they hear that word. White supremacy is if you look at your organization structure and all of your leadership is white and you think that is normal in a society that's as diverse as ours, that's a red flag that there's a problem, because talent is evident everywhere. And so those are the kind of things that we're really hoping will lean into and be willing to have that uncomfortable conversation and do the hard work of saying, "There's something amiss here. If we live in a country as diverse as ours," especially in some of the environments where these companies are headquartered, they are incredibly diverse areas that don't match at all the demographics of what their workforce are.Zach: And here's the thing, right? So when you talk about leadership and leadership representation, it's a common thing, it's a commonly known thing that black and brown folks typically top out around that manager, senior manager level and that that, like, next tier of leadership--which is that, like, senior leader to junior VP level or whatever you want to call that, it thins out dramatically, and what I just described is a common thing across certainly most service industries in terms of, like, consulting and different types of client service professions, but that's a common thing, and, like, it's been common, and I'm really eager and just very curious to see how real this moment is and, like, is this just, like, a flash in the pan reaction thing or are we actually getting ready to have, like, some collective call to consciousness? That's what I'm most curious about, that part, and to your point around white supremacy and how folks typically will characterize white supremacy being, like, the KKK, and it's scary, because there are folks out there who sit in, like, very senior diversity, equity and inclusion positions who are just now coming into the reality of what white supremacy really is, what systemic racism is, you know? Are just now reading books from, like, Robin DiAngelo and Pamela Newkirk or, you know, like, studying black civil rights. You know, it's a telling time, and I said this before, it's really, like, a watershed moment for corporate D&I practices, you know what I mean?Mandy: Absolutely. I couldn't agree more. And, you know, I think we are hoping it's the latter of what you said, that it's a watershed moment and the kind of normal corporate D&I practice as usual is going to be turned on its head for the first time--well, I don't want to say first time because there's a lot of organizations that have been doing the hard work. I think, as I talk to many D&I professionals, they've advocated for these things. The problem is that they didn't have the support from their leadership. So when we talk about the watershe dmoment, It hink it's hopefully, you know, going forward D&I practitioners, the people that have been leaning into this work and advocating for this work, will get the support and the resources that they need from management, because that has been a lot of the disconnect. We know even right before kind of what we've seen with, you know, the deaths of Ahmaud Arbery and George Floyd and Breonna Taylor that have brought about is organizations were talking about cutting D&I. That was the first thing on the chopping block. You know, "We had the pandemic. Our business is losing--"Zach: That's the first thing to go every time.Mandy: Right, and so hopefully now organizations are beginning to see how critical these issues are. D&I shouldn't be first on the chopping block, and they need to provide the support and the resources to their D&I practitioners that they need to really do the work.Zach: Amen, amen. Now, Mandy, we've talked about Kanarys, you've talked about the functionality of the platform, but I haven't really given you space to, like, plug Kanarys, and so--you know, this is not an ad, but you're here, so you might as well just go ahead and, like, let us know exactly where we can find you and all that information there.Mandy: Yeah, sure. So you can go to www.kanarys.com, K-A-N-A-R-Y-S dot com, to look for--like I said, we have information on company profiles from a very deep D&I lens so people can go in and see not only things like the demographics or their very in-depth policies, non-discrimination policies. We do include that, but things like "Do they recruit HBCUs?" Very detailed information about kind of the structure of the company's D&I policies and efforts, as well as looking at the lived experiences of other marginalized, underrepresented voices within that workforce. We allow you to filter down by all kinds of D&I topics, so you can say "I want to look at things that definitely directly relate to child care issues or things related to the disabled community." It's all, again, from a D&I lens, so you're able to really filter down and see information at a very detailed level. We also include all kinds of resources to help you advocate for things within your workplace. So we do webinars that are more geared towards chief diversity officers, but we also have a resources page that includes things like materials if you're an ally, right, and trying to learn more about this. You know that there's been an extreme kind of reach out that we've never seen before for people saying, "What are the materials I can read? What are things I can learn more about?" We have those materials on our page, so feel free to share those with others if you are getting the same kind of outreach that we've seen so many other black Americans experiencing during this time, but we also have resources for ERG groups. So if you are in an organization where you're still trying to get your leadership to release a statement, you're still trying to get your leadership to think about "We can't just release a statement. We need to take some actions. We need to look internally and externally and think about ways we can really promote racial justice in this country." We have a couple templates, letters, that you can kind of format, reformat, to send to your leadership. So again, we're all about "How can we work together, use our collective voices, to really approach these issues from a systemic basis?"Zach: I love it, I love it. Y'all, this has been Living Corporate. Thank you so much for listening. You know we do this every single week three times a week minimum, right? So we got the Tuesday episodes, we've got Tristan's Tips on Thursdays, and then we have either The Link Up with Latesha or See It to Be It with Amy C. Waninger, and that doesn't even count, you know, some extra loosies we might drop in there depending on what the time or occasion may call for. You can check us out all over Beyonce's internet, right? You can just type in Living Corporate. We're gonna pop up, okay? But if you want to make sure you connect with us on Instagram, it's @LivingCorporate. If you want to check us out on Twitter, it's @LivingCorp_Pod. And again, just type in Living Corporate for the website, but if you want the domains, living-corporate.com, livingcorporate.co, livingcorporate.tv, livingcorporate.us, livingcorporate.net--we got all the livingcorporates, Mandy, all of 'em except for livingcorporate.com. We don't have livingcorporate.com because Australia has that one, so don't type that in and get mad at me, because I'm telling you right now [that] it's living-corporate--please say the dash--dot com, or livingcorporate dot whatever else, okay? Until next time, y'all, this has been Zach, and you've been listening to Mandy Price, CEO and founder of Kanarys. Peace.

Zach sits down with activist Tema Okun, author of "The Emperor Has No Clothes: Teaching About Race And Racism To People Who Don't Want To Know," to have a chat geared around white supremacy culture at work. She and Zach take a deep dive into a piece she wrote on the subject, dissecting several of the named characteristics present in the document. Check out the show notes to reference the piece and to find out more about her work!Connect with Tema on Twitter.Read her "White Supremacy Culture" piece by clicking here.Interested in her book, "The Emperor Has No Clothes?" Check it out on Amazon.Donate to the Justice for Breonna Taylor GoFundMe by clicking here.Find out how the CDC suggests you wash your hands by clicking here.Help food banks respond to COVID-19. Learn more at FeedingAmerica.org.Check out our website.TRANSCRIPTZach: What's up, y'all? It's Zach with Living Corporate, and, you know, we continue to live in really extraordinary times for some people. Frankly, these times have been this way for a while for many of us, but we have this, like, seemingly [?] to awareness and consciousness, and so I want to respect that. I want to respect where we are. And, you know, we've actually shifted up our interview schedule, and we're having more and more pointed conversations about the reality of white supremacy. So you've probably noticed a few episodes, and we're gonna continue to do that. You know, I shared on Twitter a couple days ago that, like, I think my baseline is just much angrier these days, and I'm at peace with that. And so with that all being said, you know, we have conversations on Living Corporate that center marginalized voices at work. We do that by engaging thought leaders from across the spectrum to really have just authentic discussions. Today we have a phenomenal guest, just like we do every single week, but it makes no less true that we have a great guest today, Dr. Tema Okun. Tema has spent many years working for the social justice community. For over 10 of those years she worked in partnership with the late and beloved Kenneth Jones as part of the Change [?] Training Group and now facilitates long-term anti-racism, anti-oppression work as a member of The DR Works Collaborative. She is a skilled [?] facilitator, bringing both an anti-racist lens and commitment to supporting personal growth and development within the context of institutional and community mission. She holds a BA from Oberland College, a Masters in Adult Education from NC State University, a doctorate at NC Greensboro, and is on the faculty of the educational leadership department at the National Louis University in Chicago. She is active in Middle East peace and justice work with Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions USA. Dr. Okun, how are you?Tema: I'm great, and I want to apologize upfront because some of those biographical facts are no longer true. I left the faculty of NLU several years ago, and I'm now active with the Jewish [Voice?] for Peace. Just to update everybody so that they don't think you or I are lying about [?].Zach: Thank you for correcting me, I appreciate that. So, you know, you've been in this work for quite a while. Like, we talked some months ago actually before my daughter was born, and--Tema: Oh, you have a beautiful daughter.Zach: Thank you very much. Yes, yes, you've seen her. Yeah, she looks great, and she's getting bigger every day. It's just so cool that she's changing all the time. What I'd like to know though is if you've ever seen anti-racist, anti-state-sanctioned violence protests like this in your lifetime in terms of just scale and scope?Tema: You know, you gave me that question ahead of time, and I want to say both yes and no, and I want to say yes because [?] during the Vietnam War protest time period and I lived during the AIDS protest time and the growth of the LGBTQ movement, and I do want to acknowledge that the grief and rage and resistance that we're seeing today is part of a longer legacy of people who have been full of grief and rage and resistance before us so that we don't isolate ourselves and we also take credit for this particular moment, which is unique in the sense of the reach, the brilliance, the clarity about the demands, and I'm very excited about, you know, the defund the police direction that this is taking, and so it's a yes and no answer. I'm so excited to be alive in this moment, and I feel like I was honored to live through those other moments as well.Zach: And, you know, it's interesting because it's easy to kind of forget about the history of protest or the history of, like, anti-racism work, and so then, like, things kind of come in cycles, and so, you know, new voices come up in new generations and it's almost as if these conversations have never been had before, but, like, I'd like to get your perspective on really, like, just these concepts, the concept of whiteness and then also, like, the concept of anti-racism. And I know those are big questions. I'ma give you space, but I'd love just to hear you talk about that.Tema: Well, I think part of what's really unique about this moment is that these concepts are more broadly understood within the resistance movement that we're seeing now than they ever have been in my lifetime, so that part is definitely true. When I started doing this work a gazillion years ago, [?] years ago or so, you know, a lot of people--there was not what I would call... I don't want to use the word sophisticated, so the deep understanding about what whiteness is, how white supremacy operates, how white supremacy is the culture that we're swimming in, how it informs who we are although it doesn't define who we are. There was not that clarity, and I feel like I've been a part of the generation of people who helped think about, develop, and--and I'm not taking credit for it. I mean, I'm part of the wave of people who sort of understood that it was important to ground us in understanding that, understanding the ways that white supremacy, capitalism, patriarchy, all of these symptoms of oppression have really shaped who we are, and we need to understand how they operate if we're gonna do something different and have a different vision. So what I'll say is I think--and this might be one of the questions you're gonna ask later, but I think that the thing that we need to be careful about is that white supremacy and capitalism and patriarchy are very, very ingenious, and what we've seen happen in every movement that has ever occurred historically in our country is that they get diverted from a justice focus to an access focus and that capitalism and white supremacy know how to lure us just enough to say, "We're gonna let you have power of a certain extent in our institution. We're going to let you have access. We're going to say good things about you. But don't rock the boat too much." Leaders going, "Defund the police? It's too vague. You don't have a plan." You know, when we talk about access to healthcare, people don't demand [?]. It's like, "Yes, we have a vision. We have a vision of communities where the billions of dollars that are spent on militarized police are spent on schools and community centers and making sure people have enough food to eat." That's the vision that we have [?] defund the police, and that's what we're gonna do and not get distracted by--so part of the backlash is gonna be fierce and hateful and violent, but the more dangerous part of the backlash is gonna be accomodation.Zach: It's interesting, to your point around, like, respectability, right, and so how people, like, use the concept of civility, like, as a cudgel, right, to really stymie progression. You know, we had Dr. Robin DiAngelo on Living Corporate a few months ago, and we talked about her work in studying white fragility, and, you know, and--and, not but... not but, but I've listened to perspectives on how white fragility is not necessarily, you know, anti-racist work. Can you share your perspective on that?Tema: Sure. One of the dangers of our movement--and, you know, I love our movement, and I love many things about it. One of the dangers of our movement though is that we can get really [?] about what being in the movement or what activism is, and so my feeling is--so I'm 68 years old. I've been around a long time, and [?] point in my life is that we need it all. We need it all. This is not a competition about, you know, who's doing it right and who's doing it best and where the focus needs to be. So our frame, the way--The DR Works Collaborative has also been closed for about three or four years. All of our materials are on our website, which we can share the address later, but what we--our frame is that typically racism shows up on three levels, on the personal level, the ways that we are with each other and ourselves, on the cultura level, the beliefs and values and standards and norms of the groups of people that we're operating within, including sort of white supremacy culture overall, and then our institutional policies and procedures and practices, and one of our racial equity principles is that you have to work on all three levels. And so what I hear Robin saying, and I think it's really important, is that those of us are white who work pretty consistently on our conditioning, [?] the invitation that we are extended to join whiteness and, in joining whiteness, to both disconnect from people of color, disconnect from other white people and disconnect from ourselves, because that's what the invitation is. An example of white fragility is if you are angry, if you are in full grief about what's happening and my fragility says, "Well, you need to tone it down, because I can only accept your [?] if it comes to me in a certain kind of package," then I'm completely disconnected. I'm disconnected from you, and I'm disconnected from myself because I'm not allowing myself to feel my own grief and rage, right, because I'm so scared of yours I'm certainly not gonna feel my own. So I think what you're speaking to, you know, there's a thing that people say about white people and navelgazing and that we just like to navel gaze, and what I like to--you know, we like to agonize, and Maurice Mitchell talks about how his liberation or the liberation of black people, of people of color, is not tied up with my anxiety as a white person about getting it right. So I think that there's this balance between [?] our personal work, because all of us have invitations extended to us by white supremacy in some form or another. So all of us doing work on our internalized self and then continuing to be in the world and relationships and figuring out what our role in this resistance movement is. So it's not an either or. It's very much to me a both and, because if we don't do our personal work, then the way that we're gonna show up is just gonna replicate all of the [BLEEP] dynamics and clinging to power [?] and not understanding who we're accountable to and posturing and, you know, just things that aren't helpful, and fear of our fear and all of those things. I think it's a both and, right?Zach: I appreciate that, and I agree, right? I think one, white fragility is just so real, and it creates so many barriers and, frankly, causes so much harm in ways that we don't even consider, like, literally every single day, and because white supremacy is such a reality, white fragility impacts behavior of black and brown folks even when white people aren't around. So to make sure that those who are in power are examining and interrogating themselves, like, that's critical. That doesn't mean it's the only thing, but it's important to do.Tema: Yes. I think that living in white skin in a white supremacy culture obviously confers power and privilege, but not to everyone, and not in the same way, right? And so I think that it's really important, for me--'cause I'm speaking for myself--to understand how many white people are caught up in the same crapola of white supremacy and the ways that racism targets people of color, are caught up in that without [?] seeing it clearly. And I'm not saying that racism targets white people, I'm saying white people who are working class and poor or white people who have had no opportunity to understand how whiteness operates are swimming around in ways that are completely not in their self-interest, and, you know, are continually encouraged, for example, to look to middle class wealthy white people as their community when in fact their community are other people in the same economic and social situation that they're in. So, you know, I'd like to make sure we understand how many white people are hoodwinked by this whole thing as well and invited to participate in ways that make no sense [?].Zach: I think that's a really good point. One piece of literature that has really gotten, frankly, over the years consistent attention, but at this time it continues to get attention, is "White Supremacy Culture." It's something that you wrote, and we'll put the link in the show notes for everybody, but we're gonna walk through this research, this document. But before we do that, can you talk to us a little bit about how you arrived at the points that you made within the work that you wrote?Tema: Sure. So I've only written one book, and it's called "The Emperor Has No Clothes: Teaching About Race and Racism to People Who Don't Want to Know," and it basically was a chance for me to sit down and write all the things I and other colleagues have learned about teaching about race and racism to people. So that's what that book is, and White Supremacy Culture was written before the book, and I wrote it in either [?] or [?], so a long time ago. Kenneth and I were doing a lot of work on the West Coast, and I had just come from a People's Institute for Survival and Beyond workshop with Ron Chisholm and Daniel Buford and probably a few other people, and The People's Institute is based in New Orleans and is sort of, in my view, the grand daddy of people doing anti-racist education and training in my lifetime and so were our mentors and, you know, people that were doing the work that we were doing, so I was full of their wisdom when I wrote the piece, and I also had--and I can't remember the meaning, but I had just come from a meeting of predominantly white people where pretty much every dynamic in that sheet of paper, in that article, showed up, and I was frustrated beyond belief, and people say this, and this is my only experience of this phenomena, which is that "it wrote itself." Like, I didn't--I sat down at the computer and it wrote itself. Just sort of "This behavior, this behavior, this behavior, this behavior." It was like I was in a fury, and then I showed it to my mentor [?] Martinez, who was running a challenging white supremacy workshop at the time in the Bay Area, and she said, "You can't just list the terrible behaviors. You have to list antidotes. You have to talk about what to do," and so that was such good advice, and so I added those into it, and I will say--so it was written a long time ago. It was written without a class lens, which it needs, and it [?] things out, and it didn't--so I'm actually, in this moment, my project is creating a website rather than another article, but rather a website based on the article so that it can be more flexible. Lots of people have used it and adapted, and all the ways that people have used it and adapted it I'm gonna add a class lens, tell some stories, give examples. So that's my current project.Zach: Can we talk about, like--because in this document you essentially have these different characteristics. I'd like to walk through the characteristics that you list and then really just have you talk about each of them, because again, there are a lot of people that I respect, and I'm gonna shout-out Dr. Oni Blackstock because she's one of the most recent people who I saw tweeting about this and talking about this, but it's all over YouTube. Like, I don't know if you know this, but I just saw a video where somebody put this document up on a video and then, like, slow-scrolled it and talked about it, but I caught myself reading it and I said, "This is exactly like every work culture I've ever been a part of." So let's do this. Let's do each characteristic, and then you just kind of explain, you know, how these attitudes and behavior, you know, reinforce or drive white supremacy at work. Can we do that?Tema: Sure.Zach: So you start off with perfectionism. That's your first one.Tema: Mm-hmm. I started with that one I think probably because that's the one I'm the most guilty of myself. So, you know, I talk about how white supremacy culture is--the purpose of white supremacy is to disconnect us from each other [?] so that a few people can exert their control, cultural control, in ways that allow them to profit at our expense, and so perfectionism is this [idea?], it's very connected to professionalism, and it's this idea that there is a perfect way to do something, which is completely nonsense, and that there's somebody or some group of people who can determine what that is and encourage you to aspire to it. And then we internalize that, and I don't think I know a single person who actually feels completely comfortable with who they are and how they show up and how they're doing things, because the culture is so [?] I feel like we're continually falling short, and if we're continually falling short, then we have to buy products to make ourselves look better and feel better, and it's just a vicious cycle. And another thing I'll say about this list is that these things aren't just used to perpetuate racism and white supremacy and to target people of color in different ways at different times. They impact everybody, and they're toxic. There's nothing good about them at all at any time unless you're the one trying to control other people, and then you're so disconnected from yourself it's not even--Trump is a very good example of someone who's completely disconnected from anything. So I think that perfectionism is used as a tool of professionalism and as a tool to keep people from positions of power and also to keep people off balance about who they are and their worth and their value.Zach: You know, it's interesting. One of the things you say in here is, "Little appreciation expressed among people for the work that others are doing, appreciation that is expressed usually directed to those who get most of the credit anyway."Tema: Mm-hmm, yeah, exactly. And then the way that we internalize that, even when we're fighting hard not to. You know, I was talking to a friend yesterday who was applying for a position at a foundation. It's completely, completely clear to me, and I think to her, that she is not only qualified for the job, she is over-qualified for the job, and my guess is they won't hire her because it's clear to them too, you know? And it's so pernicious, the way that that works, where a lot of white people here who are not called to account for our lack of understanding about how racism and white supremacy works because it's not ever part of our job qualifications. No one is evaluating us based on our ability to understand how that works, and we're about to invite somebody in who does understand, and that makes us really uncomfortable, so maybe [?] somebody who's gonna not make us feel uncomfortable all the time. That's part of how that works.Zach: And so it's interesting. So I was about to move to sense of urgency, but to your point, in the recommended antidotes for racism you have "develop a culture of appreciation where the organization takes time to make sure the people's work and efforts are appreciated. Develop a learning organization where it's expected that everyone will make mistakes and those mistakes offer an opportunity for learning." It's interesting, even in organizations where they'll say things like, "Oh, it's okay to make mistakes," I've noticed that--and this is a common experience for most black folks at work, black and brown people to be clear, we don't have the same grace to make mistakes. It's interesting because--and I've had this conversation already with a colleague, but there was a time at work I put a PowerPoint together, and one I just think PowerPoints overall have to be one of the biggest examples of, like, subjectivity to the max, because what you think is a good PowerPoint or nice design I may genuinely think is abhorrent. I may really not like the design of your PowerPoint, right? Like, I might hate it. But anyway, I did a PowerPoint. Someone didn't like it, and so then that PowerPoint and then me, in their eyes, not doing well on a PowerPoint, was then a justification for me to blocked from [a multitude] of opportunities in very public ways, right? And so it's like, what does it look like to really create objective, safe, equitable spaces for everybody?Tema: Right. And what does it look like for that particular person to admit to themselves that they may not have the corner on how something needs to be done? I mean, I remember--each one of these, there's so much that's also interconnected, and two things come to mind. I remember Kenneth--so Kenneth was my mentor and my colleague for 12 years, and he died way too early in 2004, but as we were working together I remembered saying to him... 'cause my style, we were both about the same age, and my [?] style is sometimes to say or admit I've made a mistake or to show some vulnerability, and I said to Kenneth, "You never do that, you never show any vulnerability." "Tema, I can't afford to do that. People are watching me, waiting for me to make a mistake. So even if I make one, I'm not gonna say that I did because people are ready to pounce all over me for it." You know, and again, just another example of how long it took me to learn that, he had to sort of say that out loud to me [?]. So yeah, I think there's that part of it, and I had another thought, but I'm sure it will come to me as we keep talking. So here's the other story, which was that I seemed to be the details-oriented person, and sometimes I'd get really frustrated because I felt like he wasn't paying attention to, like, air fare or flights or when we had to be somewhere, and so I started to develop a little bit of an attitude about how I was doing so much more than he was, more important [?], and we were having a discussion and he said something to me like, "I talked to So-and-so the other day," and I said, "So-and-so? They were in our training a year ago," and he went, "Yeah, yeah." I said, "You're talking to them now?" "Oh, yeah, yeah," and then he proceeded to tell me that he was fostering relationships with most people in almost all the trainings over time and that that's what he did, and it just was such a lightbulb moment for me. I'm like, "Oh, my God. This man," who was a brilliant trainer, there was no question about that, "is leading and offering things that I've never even dreamt of being able to lead or offer that makes such a difference in this work, while I'm sitting here feeling all superior because I know how to schedule a plane flight." It was just like... so many of us, and so many white people in particular, but so many of us are walking around thinking that we know how things should work when we don't know at all, [?] open to how other ways of doing might actually offer so much more. So yeah.Zach: I appreciate that, and that resonates with me too because I think about, especially if you have, like, these majority white organizations, you know, again, people attract, or they're attracted, to people that are like them, right? And that's not just in appearance, but also in, like, ways of thinking and doing, and so, like, if you're in this space, the majority are really good at tasks or really good at [?] things off a box, if there's someone who can do those things but that's just not their wiring, then that person's automatically seen as a problem or as inferior in some way. In reality it's like, "Okay, I don't need--there's eight of y'all who tick off boxes and who are very, like, transactional. Is it possible for me to be different and at the same time be just as good if not add more value than you do perhaps?" I think, for me transparently, one of the biggest mistakes I think I've made in my career is that I think I've been too transparent and vulnerable about me wanting to learn and grow, 'cause I say "Hey, I'd like to learn this. I don't know this," but I've learned, in the spirit of perfectionism, when you communicate that you don't know something or you're new to something, I've just learned that we don't know, black and marginalized people, just don't have the grace to communicate that they don't know. They don't have the grace to grow. They just don't.Tema: Yeah, and it's infuriating. It's completely infuriating, and it's a complete loss. I think the thing that I would like to get across with my audience, my commitment to working with other white people, is for those of us listening to this to understand the deep violence in that, you know? In working side-by-side with people who feel like they are not allowed to offer their vulnerability or their desire to grow and learn because--my God, it's intense.Zach: So you have a lot of terms here, and you know, we might have to do a part two, but I want to see how many of these we can get through so I'm gonna back up and let you talk more. Sense of urgency.Tema: I think that, again, the point of urgency--so every organization I've ever worked with operates with a huge sense of urgency and everything is so critically important right this minute, and it completely perpetuates racism because--the example I'll give is we were doing work with an organization of mostly lawyers that do very good work on a state-wide level, and they had just sort of unpacked all the ways in which [?] of color on the staff and in the community that they served were not feeling heard, were not included in decision making, their ideas were shut down, sort of what we were just talking about, and then an emergency came up, and I think there might have been an arrest, but something urgent happened within the community, and the white leadership, the white lawyers, felt like they had to respond right this minute and if they didn't the organization would be at stake, and right in front of our eyes all of the dynamics were playing out in front of us, and the two of us who were facilitating the workshop tried to suggest to them, "This is happening right in front of our eyes. We know that this is urgent, and we suggest that you sit down and you take a breath and you understand there are other people in the community who are handling it in this moment and that what you all need to do is really sit and take a breath and see how you can approach this differently," and so they just repeated the--you know, you could see it. The white people were circled around, making all these decisions, and the people of color were [?] them on the outside, trying to listen in and then getting disgusted and walking away, and it was just--when things are urgent, if we're not paying attention and we haven't set up the relationships and we haven't set up the procedures to say when things get literally urgent this is what we're gonna do, when things feel urgent but they aren't this is what we're gonna do. Is this really as urgent as we think it is? Because it's urgent we need to take a breath, we need to take a breath and make sure that we're all in this together rather than walking all over each other in our attempt to prove something, which is to prove that, like, we're the organization that's gonna respond like that, even if the way that we respond, you know, tramples over people. And then I think a lot of us internalize urgency. A lot of white people feel like, "If we don't act right now, if I don't fix this right now, then I'm not gonna be able to prove that I'm a good white person," so then we go in and fix something and we make it worse because we haven't stopped to take a breath to consult with other people, to see if our intuition, our impulse is actually the right one. I've seen that happen over and over and over again.Zach: Let's talk about quantity over quality.Tema: Well, you know, we live in a capitalistic society, and we love to measure things, and we love to believe that value has to do with amounts of things, usually money. And again, so I see some of the [thunder patterns?], all of the thunder patterns that I've seen in my lifetime and work, is thunders trying to get people to prove that they're effective by the numbers of things. "How many people did you impact?" Not the quality of things, not the depth of things, not the sustainability of things but, you know, the number of things, which is such a limited measure of how we're doing, and the research I've done on culture shift shows that it's actually not a numbers game. We don't need a majority of people to shift culture. We need deep relationships, we need generational change, we need clusters of people coming to new beliefs simultaneously, but they don't have to be a majority. So I just think it's good to be able to have a sense of what we think progress is, but often we aim towards--I do a lot of work in schools, and the story I often tell--so I'm sorry if anyone's heard this before--is how our schools often, if not always, have a story that what they're trying to do is prepare students for success, and what they mean by that is "We want students to stay in school, get good grades, graduate, get a job, and go shopping, and if we can measure that we've done that it doesn't matter if our students are leading meaningful lives. We're not measuring that. We're not measuring if students know how to find themselves. We're not measuring if students have gotten in touch with their spiritual side or their artistic side. We're not measuring whether students know how to be in a relationship with themselves and with each other. We're not measuring the things that matter, you know? We just don't know how to measure those things. We're obsessed with graduation rates and, you know, how much money people are making.Zach: You have another one here about worship of the written word.Tema: Mm-hmm. So I'll give an example if you'll give an example, but this is our history, sort of the theft of indigenous land, the theft of land from Mexico, the broken treaties, the enslavement of people, it's all built on worship of the written word and the whole, you know, all of our Southwest and Midwest states that became US property after the Mexican-American War and the treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, all of that theft of land was made possible because Congress passed all kinds of legislation requiring people to [?], and most people lived in a culture where that's not how people [?] that they owned land. So that's just one example, and just the ways that we hide behind "If it's not written down, then it doesn't exist." "It's only wisdom if it's written down," and then only if it's written down by certain people. What comes to mind for you?Zach: So here's where I found the application interesting. So there's a way that I believe those in power and in the majority will essentially place the burden on the oppressed to have evidence, like, tangible, documented evidence, but then in the instances where that evidence is undeniable, then at best it simply just saves that oppressed person from being harmed, but it doesn't necessarily guarantee justice for that oppressed person.Tema: Yeah, or they'll say it's not written right or the form was not filled out correctly or--Zach: Right, or "We still don't have all the facts," or "What about the other person's side?" And so there's still this--it's such a jig, because you're gonna lose, but the question is "While this may have saved you from getting fired, it's not actually going to absolve your name completely after all. These other people said something." Right?Tema: I think about when Bhagat Singh Thind sued the Supreme Court for citizenship, and he was from India, and he was suing based on how science classified people from India as Caucasoids, and the year before a Japanese person who had done the same thing lost the case because people from Japan were classified as mongoloids, so they were not white, but the Supreme Court said, "Well, it's true science classifies you as Caucasoids, but you're not seen as white by the common white man, therefore you're not white." So it's the written word, but also the word is, as you said, controlled and considered by those in power, and whose written words will be paid attention to and whose won't?Zach: Yeah. I think about Breonna Taylor. We know that she was murdered by the state in her own bed, but then when you go back and you look at the report it's completely blank, right? And so, like, anybody with good sense should be able to understand that Breonna Taylor's bullet-ridden body and that piece of paper are not congruent. So one of those [?] is lying. Breonna's own blood testifies that she is not lying, so why are Breonna Taylor's murderers still free? It's the worship of the written word.Tema: Yeah. Sandra Bland, all of that, yeah.Zach: Yeah, Sandra Bland as well, right? And countless others. Tony McDade. And it's frustrating, but I think about that. I think about how manipulative and--you used the word pernicious, it's a really appropriate word in that, you know, documentation really matters until it doesn't. I always tell marginalized people to document everything, because again, while documentation might not ever hold any accountable, it at the very least can make sure that you don't get fired, or it can delay you getting fired because you have something, hard evidence, that if someone says something, you're like, "Well, what you're saying is clearly not true." Okay, so paternalism was another characteristic that you had in your research.Tema: Yeah. I'm gonna bow here to a man named Paul Kibble, who does a lot of writing on Christian hegemony. It's just the way in which--and so many of these intersect, and I'm adding one called "qualified." I don't know if that's on the list explicitly there, but it's the way in which white people assume that, because we're white, we are qualified to act and make decisions that are outside our lived experience, and I think about--when I taught it, when I wasn't on the faculty in educational leadership, when I taught undergraduate students in education, you know, most of them are young, white women who were coming into teaching because they loved to--and please know I admire teachers beyond belief because they work so hard for so little, and yet they come in, these young white women come in very idealistic and very hopeful, and they have no experience, most of them, working with people of color and very little preparation for doing that, and yet have not internalized that they're not at all qualified to do the job, and the education system hasn't internalized that either, and so just the ways in which we've got almost every [?] institution is operating out of a sense of paternalism. Like, "We know what's better for you without consulting you or asking you about your lived experience." And I think about doing work with the department of social services where it's about a woman who, in order to make it through her week, had to visit 11 different offices in the Department of Social Services to account for herself, you know? And it's the way in which--if we look at Congress. Banks are completely involved in writing policies having to do with banks. Poor people and working people have no say in policies that impact their lives, and the laws that impact their lives are written by people who think that they need to be punished for being working class and poor or who think that they need to be exploited or, you know, who have absolutely no care or concern or lived experience, for the most part, of what it means to be black, brown, working class poor, and paternalism is just this idea that "We know better than you," and it can be very deeply embedded in religious thinking, in Christian thinking, and [?]--it's just sort of the idea that "We know best. We're going to convert you to our ways," and that's white supremacy is all about. The goal here [?] is "Act like us if we can exploit you more that way." Assimilation, and if not assimilation exploitation and violence, you know? It's just all based on this idea that we know better, and one of the things that we know better is that [class?] is more important than people.Zach: I think that's true. I think it comes down to a lot of power and control. So, you know, one of my larger concerns right now, even as corporations and larger organizations are looking at Black Lives Matter and people are taking these statements and stances, and organizations are mobilizing their employee resource groups and different things to have these conversations and do real talk and all this kind of stuff, and how much of this is about really hearing and including their marginalized employees, and how much of this is about, like, really making sure that you're retooling, reshaping your organization to be equitable and inclusive, or how much of this is really about you just trying to put some gates and borders around this to maintain control, right? That's my biggest concern.Tema: So I think there's two parts to this. So I think there can be conscious paternalism and there can be unconscious paternalism, and probably lots of gray [?] in between, and so I for one completely hate the terms diversity and [?] because I don't think that they--it's about window-dressing or table-dressing or whatever term you want to use. It doesn't ask the question, "What are we including people into?" Because if we were to ask that question, we would have to admit that a lot of what we're inviting people into is toxic. So it's not about including people. It's about reshaping everything, and I think that's what I was talking about in terms of what we need to be wary of, that some of the backlash is going to be very direct and hateful. Now, a lot of it is gonna be about accommodation, and forget about justice, let's just accommodate, accommodate, accommodate. And paternalism really plays a role there, and we can see it reflected in older leaders often, people who have been around a long time, who are scared they're gonna lose power by these young people who are coming up full of fervor and demanding justice, and some of us have accommodated for so long in order to just often survive that we've forgotten what the goal is, and some of the paternalism is--I'll speak for myself--is internalized entitlement, the internalized belief that I'm qualified to do things I'm not qualified to do, and it didn't require any intent on my part. And I tell a story on the website, and it might be in the book I can't remember, of essentially pushing my black colleague aside in an environment where I knew absolutely everything. This was a different colleague, a colleague named Kamayu [sp] [?], an incredible organizer, and he was in [?], the room was packed full of African-American people living in the [?], economically poor, culturally incredibly genius and rich, and, you know, I didn't think he was doing a good job, so I walked up to the front and I pushed him aside, and I didn't know anything about [?] in the [?], right? But I had this instinct in my body that he wasn't doing it and I needed to fix it. It was--so there's that, the way I internalized this paternalism and this idea that I know how to do things. We just cause so much harm, and again, it's a complete tribute to Kamayu that we're still friends. He actually didn't say anything to me for years, and finally I started to think about it and I'm like, "Kamayu, what about that day?" And he went, "Oh, I figured you'd figure it out sooner or later." You know? So there were, like, five years in there where Kamayu was not--I was not in a genuine relationship with him because he was waiting for me to figure it out, you know?Zach: To your example, I think about it in ways that, like--so it's interesting, you have these cultures that are very racist, right? Like, you have these organizations that have harmed black people for a while, but it just so happens that there's a certain confluence of events that are forcing organizations that have been historically harmful to black and brown people, now they're having to do things differently. But what's challenging, what's interesting, is that some of the people who just six months ago were very harmful are now self-appointing themselves as leaders to have these conversations, right? And, like, there's a certain--of course that's emotionally inauthentic, but I think there's also a certain level of entitlement and paternalism in that.Tema: Yeah, totally. And again, I think--so this is my job, it's not your job, but as someone who identifies as white, who is white, who lives a white life and thinks a lot about what it means to be in relationships with other white people, part of [my job?] is to encourage myself and other white people to think about, "What are we doing here?" And what is the cost to you of this posturing, and what would it be like for you to actually authentically sit down with yourself and go, "Okay, what am I afraid of? What kind of help do I need? What are the things I really need to change?" And I think all of us need to develop a much better practice of what I would call radical honesty with ourselves about why we want to live in a world where we actually are able to have authentic relationships with other people and ourselves and live in a world where people are well-cared for and people can thrive and we don't have to be so afraid of [?] and all these other things. So yeah.Zach: So I'ma pick one last one. Fear of open conflict.Tema: Yeah, that goes back to perfectionism and some of the other things that we talked about. The story I'll tell is that--well, it's a common story, which is that some racism is happening, and rather than deal with the racism that's happening we will label or target the person who's naming it, and sometimes that happens to white people too because we're so afraid of the truth-telling that's gonna happen of how racism is happening. So it's just this--we're too afraid to talk about things that are real and are gonna have emotion attached to them and might lead us, as white people, to feel like we've done something wrong or that we may even essentially be bad in some kind of way, so let's not talk about it. Let's blame the person who's trying to make us uncomfortable. This is attached to "right to comfort." Let's blame the people who are calling us in and say that there's something wrong with them so we don't have to feel our feelings, we don't have to be uncomfortable, we don't have to look at ourselves. We can stay in what feels like control, and it's such a--again, it does such harm, to other people and also to ourselves. The ability to sort of say, "Bring it on. Okay, tell me more. Tell me more. That was so racist? Okay, tell me more. I want to know. Tell me more." It's such a different energy. It's opening. Or "You're racist." "No, I'm not." "Yes, you are." "No, I'm not." There's nowhere--it's, like, you're building conflict and you're not--it's like, "So tell me. How am I racist? Yeah, I want to know, because I think I probably am. So tell me." There's so much more fruit there, even if you end up not agreeing with what they say it's like there's more fruit, more juice, more ability to--it's like, "We can handle this. We can sit in this discomfort, and in fact, if we don't learn to do that we're not gonna get anywhere."Zach: But see, I think that in the context of, like, a business, like, the fear with that is that if I admit that I'm racist, if I admit that I've harmed you, then that gives you byway to pursue the company, right? And so there's this fear of creating risk or opening your company up, opening yourself up to risk by admitting your faults, you know?Tema: So people just need to figure out a way to deal with that.Zach: [laughs] I love how you just dismiss that.Tema: Oh, come on. I don't--you know, legalese and laws and policies [?] in service of connection and not in service of fear and abuse, right? It's like Trump saying you can only come to the thing if you're not gonna sue me if you get the coronavirus. Like, no. And I would also say, for me, one of the racial equity principles [?], you'll see this list of characteristics, and you'll also see our racial equity principles, and one of the ones I love the most is called Organizing Mind, and what we mean by that is you start with the chorus. People go, "Oh, you're preaching to the chorus," and I go yes, because our chorus is very out of tune, so let's get in tune, and then we can start preaching to people outside the chorus and bring them into the chorus. So it's, like, start with the people who want you want, and figure out what your power is, figure out the risk that you're willing to take, and from there each one reach one teach one, as Sharon Martinez would say. So in a corporate environment it's, like, figuring out what are the roadblocks that we need to get rid of so we can actually do this, or whwere are we willing to have authentic conversations regardless of the risk and can we start doing that? So figure out what's within your power to do and do it. Don't wait for permission. Don't wait for--you know, there are lots of things that we can do and build our power that way without people giving us permission to do it, as we are witnessing across the country and across the globe, right? All these beautiful people, many young people, not waiting for permission. Bringing down statues, [?], and it's a beautiful thing to see right now.Zach: It's brought me joy, frankly, to see. Dr. Okun, this has been a phenomenal conversation. I just want to thank you so much for being a guest. I want to make sure that everybody knows that the document that we were walking through and that I picked a few characteristics out of for our guest to beautifully expand upon is gonna be in the show notes, and we're going to also be promoting it--you'll see it this week on social media and things of that nature, so make sure that you check it out. This has been Living Corporate. You know, we do this every single week. We're having conversations, real talk in a corporate world, that center and amplify marginalized voices at work. We'll make sure to catch you all next time. In the meantime between now and next time, we're all over Beyonce's internet. You just type in Living Corporate, we'll pop up. Catch us on Instagram at LivingCorporate, and man, if you have anything you want to talk to us about, just contact us through the website, living-corporate.com. Please say the dash--living dash corporate dot com. 'Til next time, y'all, this has been Zach, and you've been listening to Dr. Tema Okun, activist, educator, speaker, organizer. Peace.

Zach has the honor of sitting down to chat with Mary-Frances Winters, the founder and CEO of The Winters Group, Inc., about black equity and power. Mary-Frances shares some of the top things she believes that majority leadership groups are doing today that undermine their own workplace equity efforts and explains her perspective on why chief inclusion/people/culture officers are typically white folks. Check the links in the show notes to find out more about The Winters Group!Connect with Mary-Frances on LinkedIn, Twitter, and Instagram. Links in order:https://bit.ly/2Bs8pZBhttps://bit.ly/2ZXoMYlhttps://bit.ly/3csD9qbLearn more about The Winters Group on their website. http://bit.ly/33pqotqCheck out the Inclusion Solution blog.https://bit.ly/2yX2quXYou can connect with The Winters Group on LinkedIn, Twitter, and Instagram. Links in order:http://bit.ly/2WrDjtghttp://bit.ly/3d69LYhhttps://bit.ly/2XUy6t7Find out how the CDC suggests you wash your hands by clicking here or below.https://bit.ly/2Ug4l5KHelp food banks respond to COVID-19. Learn more at FeedingAmerica.org.https://bit.ly/2WD73UkCheck out our website.https://bit.ly/living-corporateTRANSCRIPTZach: What's up, y'all? It's Zach with Living Corporate, and look, it's Tuesday. The day of this recording is May 4th, so May the 4th be with you. We have incredible guests every single time we come on, and today is no different, because what we're trying to do is what we always do, right? Which is center and amplify marginalized voices in the workplace. Now, I would like to think Living Corporate is a little bit unique in that we're having these conversations, but not only are we having these conversations that are centering marginalized voices, but we're having these conversations with marginalized identity groups, right? So a lot of times when you think about this diversity, equity and inclusion space, it's folks who don't look like me using fairly esoteric, like, heady language to describe things that they really don't experience, right? Like, not to put too fine a point on it. Just look... I'm just gonna be honest, right? Just gonna be a straight shooter, okay? And I'm proud of the fact that we've been able to have incredible guests that have not only the lived experience but have the practical knowledge and expertise to talk about real subjects, and so that's why our tagline for Living Corporate is real talk for a corporate world. Now, look, some of y'all have been listening to us and been rocking with us for a while, but every episode is somebody's first episode, so I just want to make sure I kind of level set a little bit. So with all that being said, I'm really excited to have our guest today, Mary-Frances Winters. Mary-Frances Winters is the founder and CEO of The Winters Group, Inc., a global organization development and diversity and inclusion consulting firm with over 35 years--count 'em, y'all, 35... more than I've been alive--more than 35 years of experience. She truly believes that diversity and inclusion work is her “passion and calling.” She's been dubbed a thought leader in the field for the past three decades and has impacted over hundreds of organizations and thousands of individuals with her thought-provoking messages, and her approach to diversity and inclusion. Ms. Winters is a master strategist with experience in strategic planning, change management, diversity, organization development, training and facilitation, systems thinking--yo, shout-out to systems thinking--and qualitative and quantitative research methods, and she has extensive experience in working with senior leadership teams to drive organizational change. My goodness, gracious. With all that being said, Mary-Frances, welcome to the show.Mary-Frances: Thank you so much. Thank you so much for having me. I really appreciate it. You're definitely dating me, but that's all right. I'll take it. [laughing]Zach: I apologize. I wasn't trying to date you. I was trying to speak to the depth and breadth of the work that you've been doing, 'cause I think a lot of times it's easy, you know--like, pausing on, just, like, this conversation, but kind of, like, thinking about generational tensions, right? So I think there's, like, a lot of frustrations sometimes with folks who--like, millennials, you know, folks, like, in their early 30s or even, like, mid-20s to late-20s crowd who just think that, like, all of these frustrations that we're seeing now are new, right, but there have been folks who have built foundations before us that allow us to actually move forward, so it's just incredible that you've been in this space and doing this for a significant amount of time. I don't believe that should be taken lightly at all.Mary-Frances: Well, thank you. I appreciate it. I accept it with honor and respect, so thank you so much.Zach: Thank you so much. So how are you doing during this time? Like I said, we're recording this on May 4th. How are you and your loved ones?Mary-Frances: We're well, we're well. We're doing well. You know, it is unprecedented times. It's very, very difficult times for the world, but, you know, we're doing well, and thank you for asking.Zach: So let's get right into it. Diversity, equity and inclusion work is about marginalized identities, yet the loudest voices in this space tend to be those of the majority, right? So, like, when you think about these big, big organizations and you look at, like, the chief inclusion officer or the chief people officer or the chief culture officer, they're typically white folks. Why do you think that is?Mary-Frances: Well, I don't think that the dominant group sees diversity and inclusion as being about marginalized folks. They see it as being about everybody. "We have to include everybody," and so some of what my frustration has been, as you mentioned, 35 years, and so when we used to talk about it, you know, in the days of affirmative action, they were protected groups, right? So the initiatives were targeted towards those protected groups. When we started to talk about it as being diversity, then it broadened and everybody got included in diversity, and the group that gets least talked about now are black folks, because they don't want to talk about black people. So I don't think that the dominant group that controls the narrative, I don't think that they see it about being about marginalized identities only, right? And so the focus may or may not be there, you know, depending, and so we did a session for a client not too long ago to talk about the relevancy of white men in the organization. So, you know, you've got to be inclusive of white men. [both laughing] Yeah, so that's why I think--you asked me why I think that is? That's why I think that is, yeah. Because in the corporate world, we don't even use the word "marginalized identities." So it's not a new term in sociology, but let me tell you, 35 years in this business, it's a new term in the corporate world. It's starting to be used, and I think it is because of the influence of the millennials. We've been doing some work in some organizations that, you know, normally--some of these older, traditional organizations have been around 150 years and still got baby boomers at the helm, right? Some of these other organizations have been around 15, 20 years, they've got a lot of millennials at the helm. Those organizations are using this language, the social justice language. The traditional organizations? Not so much.Zach: [laughs] So one, thank you. I'm really curious--that really is a good segue into the next question I have for you about just you showing up doing this work as a black woman, and not to, like--again, not to age you, we're talking about the fact that--[Mary-Frances laughs] It's not like you're a black woman who just graduated from college and, you know, you're in this space, or you just finished B school, like, you're someone who has seen this space grow and evolve and change and shift and permutate, you know, various times over over the past three and a half decades, and so I'm curious, like, what does it look like for you to operate in this space, and then specifically going into the example that you just provided, how do you respond to narratives like that? That, you know, white men need to feel just as included as black men or other marginalized groups?Mary-Frances: Yeah. So as a black woman in this work, a cisgender heterosexual black woman, baby boomer, there are different ways it impacts me. So one way that it impacts me is "Oh, yeah, let's get Mary-Frances because she can bring the voice of black folks." Um, no. Mary-Frances brings her voice, not all black folks, right? That's one way. This other way is, "Gee, we really can't hire The Winters Group to do this--" This is a black person talking now. "Because you're black and I'm black, and, you know, the optics of it, it looks like we might be giving you, you know, preferential treatment." The third way is when I stand in front of a group, to the question about, you know, white men, I do--if my question is gonna get across, I do in some ways have to disarm white men, because they're gonna--they see me coming in with my sister locks and, you know, "This black woman is gonna come in and she's gonna tell us, you know, how racist we are. She's gonna make us feel bad," and so what I've learned over the years is that you've gotta get them to like you first. No matter what they've gotta like you, right? And they have to think that the message resonates. So I learned the language. I learned the language of the organization. I connect my message to whatever their business plan is, whatever their business strategy is. You know, I connect it to that, because, you know, you're already coming in being black, being a woman. So those are two, you know, marginalized groups, historically marginalized groups. And so yeah, so there are different ways. And, you know, we talk about code switching, right? So we have to code switch a lot of times in order to get the work done, particularly in corporate spaces. Now, I don't know if you've noticed--well, I'm sure you've noticed because you know my colleague, Brittany J. Harris, who is the vice president of The Winters Group, and we're doing a series right now in our inclusion solution blog on decolonizing DEI work, and, you know, part of that--and I wrote a couple of weeks ago about decolonizing particularly the corporate world with, you know, corporate speak. So you come in and they have to have a business case, and the business case has to be "How does this help my business, you know, perform better?" That's, like, the classic corporate business case, and that's kind of centering this capitalist narrative, right? We're about the profits, and you can [show?] me by hiring black folks and hiring women, whoever else you want me to hire. If you can show me that that can help me to sell more whatever I'm trying to sell, then it's okay. So I think that, you know, to some extent--you know, I was just talking to a very large client just before this--I will not name that client. Very old client, 150, 160 years old, you know, very old. [laughing] You know, middle of the country, and they're just trying to get this stuff off the ground and you come in talking about marginalized groups and whatnot to a bunch of these white men, they're just not gonna--it's just not gonna happen. So it's this delicate balance, Zach, of on one hand, you know, you have to be able to engage the groups that they listen, and on the other hand you're trying to dismantle, you know, this dominant sort of narrative that doesn't necessarily work, and it hasn't worked. 35 years, 36 years, all of the same issues that I was teaching and talking about 36 years ago are the same. As a matter of fact, my book Black Fatigue will be coming out in February. Black Fatigue: How Racism Erodes the Mind, Body, and Spirit comes out in February, and I have a chapter in that book, Chapter 3, called Then is Now, and so I go back and I look at data from whatever point you want to take. You can take it from 1965, 1975, it doesn't really matter what you want to take it. When you look at our data and our statistics, we have not made progress. We're stuck, and we're at this standstill. Brown vs. the Board of Education was 1954, which was desegregate schools. Our schools are more segregated today than then. You know, the Civil Rights Act of 1964. You know, all of this legislation, housing. In 1975, 43% of black people owned their own homes. In 2019, 43% of black people own their own homes. The net worth--and, you know, net worth is, like, what you're worth, right? Net worth. A single black woman's net worth is $500, versus the net worth of a white woman, single white woman, which is [$5000?], still low. The net worth of white people, at 150 something thousand dollars, is 10 times that of a black person, and it follows even if you look at college-educated. So somebody who has a PhD who is a black woman college professor with a PhD makes 20% less than a white man who has a PhD and 7 to 8% less than a woman who has a PhD, and so all of these inequities--and I'm using those just as an example--is about Then is Now, that we haven't really turned the corner. So we're fatigued. [?] And it's particularly tiring for me because, like you said, I've been doing it for over 35 years. [both laughing] I'm tired.Zach: You're absolutely right, and we've had conversations about that on Living Corporate, and we cite the study Umbrellas Don't Make It Rain that really goes into dispelling the myth that higher education will, you know, somehow close the wealth gap, and it hasn't and it doesn't. So let's talk about this. There's a variety of folks that we've had on Living Corporate who have said, you know, diversity and inclusion, corporate diversity and inclusion, is inherently [anti]-black, not just in its external doings but at the internal politics. Do you have any thoughts on the voracity of that position?Mary-Frances: Well, society is inherently anti-black, so by extension the corporate world is inherently anti-black. We live in a society that has historically and continues to be anti-black. I don't know--yeah, so I agree. [both laugh] I mean, right? So yeah, you know, D&I is inherently anti-black. It is because that's the society--you know, when I wrote this book Black Fatigue and I was telling people about this, "Oh, please write about black and brown fatigue and, you know, all deference to indigenous people and native people and Latinos and everybody, right?" But the black experience in the United States has been different than any of those other experiences, and because of that the stereotypes and the marginalization plays out differently, and so I really felt a need--even though [?]--I show statistics for Latinos and Asians, you know, as well in the book, but I really wanted to focus on how this is playing out for black folks, because let me tell you. I say--you know, [?]--race is diversity's four-letter word, and particularly when you talk about black folks, people don't want to talk about it. They don't want to talk about the black and whiteness of it. "Let's talk about Asians. Let's talk about Latinos," right? So this anti-black--so that's one way anti-black plays out. You know, we have to include the other groups that we have [?]. I had a call with a client just on Friday, and they talked about how the psychologist or sociologist, whoever we were quoting--I forgot who it was--was black, and so we were like, "Uh, yeah," and they said, "Well, you know, perhaps we need to get some other experts included in this data set." What's that about? "Are there some Asian people who have spoke on this too?" [laughs] So yeah, I mean, we live in an anti-black world, and by extension our corporations are anti-black. I mean, look at things like the recent legislation around the CROWN Act. Why does anybody freaking care how I wear my hair? Why do we have to have legislation for people to be able to wear their hair--for black people to be able to wear their hair the way they want to wear their hair. You know, the young man wrestler, right, and they made him--Zach: Yes, made him cut his hair. His dreads.Mary-Frances: His dreads, right. Exactly. Right there. You know? I mean, why do you care? You don't have to like--what I say to folks is, "I don't care if you like it. You don't have to like my hair. I'm not asking you to like my hair." [laughing] But, I mean, are we still in a slavery, there's no freedom, that we can't even wear our hair the way we want to wear our hair? You know what, I heard about hair 36 years ago when I was in the corporate world and I had a very short afro, and one day a colleague--wasn't even my boss, a colleague--comes in my office and says, "Will your hair grow?" And I just looked at him and I said, "Yeah," and he said, "Well, you oughta let it," and he walked out of my office.Zach: Wow.Mary-Frances: That's why I left corporate. One of the reasons anyway. But anyway, so yes, is it an anti-black world? Yes, indeed. Indeed, it is. Unfortunately, you know, it is. And when you say that--and the problem is when you say that to white people they think that you're calling them a racist, and I'm not. I'm not. What I'm saying is the very foundation and structure upon which our various societies and the way we think and the policies and all those things are based on anti-black sentiments, anti-black beliefs if you will. Zach: You know, I'm really curious about, like--because you're right, we had Brittany Harris on the show some time ago, and we were talking about decolonization and dismantling and deconstructing systems, right? So it was more so about, like, kind of, like, trying to make some shifts and some headway in this work, because like you said, there's a lot of conversations that have just been happening, they've been recycling for years, and I'm curious to know, what are you seeing some other, like, DEI groups or, like, kind of names, things that they're saying that you're like, "Man, we've been doing that." Like, "We've been working on that," or "That's not new. Like, y'all think it's new, but it's not new." Like, does anything like that stick out to you?Mary-Frances: Yeah, I think that, you know, the whole idea of, you know, oppression, marginalization, privilege, all of those kinds of things I think have been out there for--you know, for a long time. You know, we can all remember--those of us in this work--Peggy McIntosh's White Privilege. Judith Katz, my colleague, did something on heterosexual privilege back in the '90s, and the Peggy McIntosh book was back in the '70s. You know, Brown Eyes, Blue Eyes, which shows, you know, bias. We now call it unconscious bias, but Jane Elliott, you know, put that out in, I don't know, the '70s, '60s or '70s. I was using that video--now that you've already dated me I'll just keep going with it--but I was using that video [laughing]--Zach: I'm so sorry. [laughing]Mary-Frances: No, no, no. You're fine, I'm just teasing you. [laughing] You know, I was using that video in the '80s, right? And now I hear people like, "Oh, do you know about Jane Elliott's video Brown Eyes, Blue Eyes?" And that's the other thing, [?] why I wrote Black Fatigue is because--and I'm not saying this is about millennials. This is not about generations at all thinking this stuff is new. This is about folks who are, like, in my age group to who this is all, like, a revelation, right? "We didn't know." So here, case in point. We know that COVID-19 is disproportionately impacting particularly black people, and when it came out, this proportionality, it was like, "Oh, wow, we have health disparities?" This is not new. I mean, these health disparities have been--they have been well-researched, well-written about, and they continue. They have not improved. Even middle-class black women are twice as likely to die in childbirth. You know, these are not new, and so that's what's part of, you know, the frustrating thing. You know, I really respect some of the newer folks who are coming into this space, and I think that they're doing remarkable work, and I'm hoping that perhaps they can put a different spin--I know Brittany, as a millennial, has brought definitely a different spin to our work. When Brittany came on board, which was, like, four years ago now I guess, we had started to talk about the intersection of social justice and corporate speak, because, you know, the language was all different, right? Everything was different. So we talk about mapping the intersection. What is the intersection of social justice and corporations? So corporations worried about the bottom line. Why should they be worried about, you know, social justice as well, and how do we get that languge? So I think at The Winters Group we're a little bit further ahead of mapping that intersection of saying that it's not one or the other. It really is a both and, because if you help to alleviate the social ills of this world or even of this country or even of the place that you operate your business, your business is going to be better.Zach: No, I'm right there with you, and I really think that segues well into this next question, which is just, you know, what trends do you see in this work from a thought leadership perspective, and if you were to kind of look across the landscape of this work and when you think about workplace equity as a whole, you know, where are the biggest places you think we have to grow?Mary-Frances: So where I see that we have places to grow in this work is fixing organizational cultures so that they truly are inclusive and we're not just using the word, that we're not just saying that we're inclusive, because the surveys that we do inside corporations would suggest that the cultures are not inclusive, particularly--PARTICULARLY--for black folks. Particularly. Now, when we do surveys with Latinos and Asians, culturally they may not be having a good experience, but they're not gonna tell us that because culturally they don't talk ill of--and I'm stereotyping, I know I'm stereotyping big time right now, but for the most part Latinos and Asians don't speak ill of their employers. That's a cultural thing, right? And so they're gonna say, you know, everything is good. We, you know, coming from a history of descension, a history of sort of laying it out there. You know, "No justice, no peace." Zach: Give us us free, yes.Mary-Frances: Yeah, right. We're willing to say, "No, this is not a good experience," if we answer the survey. We did a big survey for a corporation recently, and not many black people answered the survey. So then I did a focus group with them and they said, "Oh, no, we're not answering that survey. They can figure out who we are because there's only about 100 of us in the whole company." So the point is that organizational cultures, the traditional organizational cultures, are designed for dominant groups. They always have been. In the '70s when I was in the corporate world, they decided to bring in a whole bunch of black people, a whole bunch of black professionals, because they didn't have enough, and they just said, "Let's bring 'em all in here." Within a year, every single one of them were gone except one. There was probably about 30 people. Every single one of them left because the culture was not friendly, was not conducive. There were micro-aggressions all day long. [?] I told you about the micro-aggression about my hair. Here's another one. So the company sent me to some banquet or something, and I was sitting there--and I got to represent the company, so I was sitting at the head table, and we had a little fruit cup, you know, as our appetizer or something, and so the person sitting next to me said, "Oh, look at that, you have more watermelon in your fruit cup than anybody at the table." Now, why would you even say that? What would even make you part your lips to speak like that? Yeah. So you know what I did? I said, "Oh, you like watermelon? Would you like mine? I'll trade with you." [both laughing] So my point is that hasn't changed in 30 however many ever years that is. That hasn't changed. And so, you know, where we still need to grow is to really get at the culture, and the only way we're gonna get at the culture is to hold people accountable, and because the experience that people have in their organizations are 1:1 with their direct manager, right, and so if the direct manager is not talking the talk, walking the walk, it's not happening for that person. We often times focus on the top leadership, top of the house--"Let's start at the top of the house." I say that we need to focus on first-line leadership, those individuals who are most likely to have the greatest span of control. First-line leaders have more reports than the CEO. The CEO probably has six or seven direct reports, right? All the senior vice presidents, and then it goes down from there. So the biggest span of control and the biggest opportunity for change is at that first level, and we often times don't work with that first level of leadership because they don't have the budget for it or, you know, all of these other excuses. So I really think--and I've been saying this for years, so I don't know if this is a trend or not, but I've been saying this for years, that we have to get to that level. The other places that we still need to grow is pay inequity. You know, pay inequity for women and, you know, women of color in that equation too. That's an easy fix. You look at your data and you see who--if you have a disparity with women not being paid the same amount, then you fix it. You see, this is why if organizations wanted to do it, they could. Any aspect of diversity. If they wanted to do it, they would absolutely do it. So those are areas, I mean, in just terms of very tactical places, in terms of--cultures are really, really hard to change. So I had a call with a client this morning, and they had a question on the survey--they wanted me to review their survey. We have our own survey, but they got somebody else to do their survey, but they wanted me to review the questions. Here's one of the questions. "I fit in well at this organization."Zach: Hm, that's a good question.Mary-Frances: Huh? No, that's a bad question.Zach: Talk to me. Educate me why it's a bad question.Mary-Frances: Okay. Because it's about fitting in. Fitting in is about assimilation. Fitting in is about "I fit in," meaning that--Zach: I'm adjusting myself.Mary-Frances: I'm adjusting myself. I fit in, right? I mean, you still may get at it, but the whole idea of--even putting the language out there. So that's, you know, colonizing language, "fit," you know? Because what do we say when we hire somebody? We say, "Oh, yeah, they'd be a really good fit," and what "a really good fit" means is what? "They're like us."Zach: It's interesting, because the reason I was saying it's a good question is because I know a lot of--I know for me I would be like, "No."Mary-Frances: Right, exactly, and that's what they're hoping to get, but you see how the message could be from the other side, that you need to fit in.Zach: It absolves the organization of responsibility and onus in creating an inclusive work environment for that person.Mary-Frances: Exactly. So I said, "Why don't you have the question "I feel included at this organization?"" Right? I mean, you're gonna get the same answer, right, but you're now using language that is language that's about inclusion rather than fitting in, because fitting in is basically saying, you know, "Yeah, we need you to fit in. We need you to be like us." Zach: Okay, okay. Let's talk about black male presenting identities in this space, right? I could be speaking selfishly, but it seems as if they're still not highlighted with the same level of attention or nuance of some other people groups. Am I being fair? And, you know, if you agree with that, then could you kind of talk to me about why you think that may be?Mary-Frances: Yeah. So, you know, this is so interesting, because the chapter in Black Fatigue, it's called I Can't Breathe: Black Men's Fatigue, and I also have a chapter in the book called Say My Name: Black Women's Fatigue. So for the black women's chapter it's almost, like, twice as long as the black man's chapter, right? And I'm like, "Wait a minute." I said, "Is it because I'm a black woman and, you know, I relate to the experiences more?" So yes, and I'll tell you--this is the absolute truth. I am not kidding. I have been wrestling with this all weekend because I want to modify the chapter on black men to bring more of that voice. So with black women I could talk about, you know, #BlackGirlMagic, right? You know, what's the analogous movement for black men?Zach: There's nothing that big. I would say, you know, you have Black Boy Joy, but it's not as big, and there's some tension in that because a lot of black men are like, "Well, I'm not a boy. Don't call me a child. I'm a man." You know? So I'm not sure. That's a good question.Mary-Frances: So I write in the book about two experiences, two stories I tell. One story is about somebody who actually now--he has a degree in human resources, but he prefers to work with his hands, and he comes over and he tunes up our air conditioning in the spring and changes the filters and all that kind of stuff. So he was over the other day, and he worked for a large heating and air conditioning organization and was doing really well. They had him in their commercials on TV and everything and, you know, he said he just couldn't take it anymore. We would talk about entrepreneurship while he was still working there, 'cause he knew I was an entrepreneur and everything. So he finally left, and he's been on his own for 18 months, and he works 14, 16 hours a day. Nicest guy in the world. Got a young family, you know? Just really very customer service-oriented. He said, "Yeah, you know, when I go knocking on the doors, I've got to know how I'm coming," he said, "Because when they see that I'm black, you know, they get a little afraid." Ryan is all of 5'6" and, you know, maybe 150 pounds. He's a slightly built man. Zach: Slight guy, yeah.Mary-Frances: So he said, you know, "Why is this? Why do I have to exist like this, where, you know, I'm just trying to live and I'm just trying to, you know, run a business?" And he ran into--while he was in the corporate world, they told him one time that he couldn't get promoted because he was so good at his job that they needed him to stay in that job. That's why he couldn't be promoted, 'cause he was so good. [both laugh] Another time he was told that--he was promoting a particular service that they had, the air conditioning or whatever, and they said, "You're selling too much of this service." That's why he couldn't be promoted. So that's one. Another black guy, who had been with this organization for over 30 years, very well respected externally because he was in manufacturing and he has this particular knack for--he was called the turn-around man. He has a particular knack for going into a manufacturing operation and being able to, you know, whip it into shape, you know? The key performance indicators, the KPIs and all those kinds of things. I mean, he's a guru at that, right? [Lead?] manufacturing and all of that kind of stuff. And they would always send him to the place that was performing the worst, and he would go. So then they decided they were gonna put him in D&I, and this was after 30 years [?], so he's out of his element in D&I. He's gonna do his KPIs, he's gonna do his, you know, manufacturing operations. I think he turned just a few people off, right? So he ended up retiring early. No retirement party after all this. He's doing so well on the outside because he's got articles, he's got--he's well-known in this space, but he was kind of forced out of the organization because somebody didn't like, you know, what he said. So I think, you know, black men, one of the [?] chapters in my book, I have Tall, Dark, and Handsome, right? So when a white man is tall, he's paid more. When a black man is tall, he's actually paid less. The darker-skinned the black male man is, the less that he gets paid, right? Lighter-skinned black men get paid more than dark-skinned black men. So you take a black man who is tall and dark-skinned, you know, that feeds a whole lot of stereotypes, right? You know, and the handsome, you know, like I said in my book, black women [think they're handsome?, laughing] but the majority group probably doesn't. Not so much, right? But you're penalized. You know, black men are penalized, you know, for being tall. Black men are penalized for being darker-skinned. So my son, who is--he went to Harvard, Duke and Princeton, he studied under Cornell West. He is now a tenured associate professor of religion at Duke University. So when he was a kid he was always big. Joe's about, like, 6'5", so he was always big, and they always told him, you know, "You're gonna hurt the other kids. You gotta, you know--" So he's this gentle giant now because he was told, you know, "Don't be too aggressive." Up until the fourth grade there was something wrong with Joe all the time. We had to see a psychologist. You know, he just wasn't adjusting right, and he just da-da-da-da. All of these things. You know, he was in a white school district and usually the only black kid, one of two in his class. So in the fourth grade he had a teacher, he was a white male teacher, who said, "You know what? I think the only thing wrong with Joe is that he's brilliant." He said, "That's the only thing I think is wrong with him." And as soon as Joe started to see himself as brilliant and everybody else started to see himself as brilliant, guess what? Joe become brilliant, and voila, Harvard, Duke, Princeton grad, but if somebody hadn't told him that he was--[?], right? And so Joe writes about hip-hop and religion. He writes about the African-American experience. His book is--you might want to interview my son. His book is called "Hope: Draped in Black," and--Zach: I'd love to interview him, yeah. Let's talk about it offline for sure.Mary-Frances: Yeah, but what he talks about is how you hold hope in the wake of, you know, all of the oppression and whatnot. But, you know, we talked this weekend about black men and about, you know, the hip-hop culture and the gangster and, you know, the rape culture, and we talked about all of that and how that plays out and, you know, why that is, and yeah, it's--black men are very complex, very complex, and they have been, you know, obviously treated the worst. So it's tied up in self-concept. It's tied up in a whole lot of--and what one study found is that black men who have a good self-concept and are also able to figure out how to navigate, you know, the system, they do well in a corporation, but you've got to come first with a good self-concept, and I think, as quiet as its kept, all that bravado sometimes with black men, you know, "Show me some respect" and all that kind of stuff, you know, and "I'm all of that," I think underneath is really a lot of trauma.Zach: Oh, I agree with that. I think you're 100%, I mean, just spot on, and I also think, you know, when you think about black men in this space--it's interesting because black men and white women have something in common, where black men are black, yet they benefit to a much lesser degree, but they still benefit to a degree, from patriarchy, and white women are women of course, but then they benefit from white supremacy. So there's some dynamics there that are nuanced, and yet in a way that black women don't. So black women are women and they're black, right? So it's like, okay, there's no pool that you can pull from or there's nothing that you can really pull from a position of privilege. Of course you have able-bodied privilege, and if you're cisgender and all those things, but I'm talking about, like, just at a high level. So then--but I was gonna say that, you know, it's hard to talk about that because black men benefit from patriarchy, but it's like, "But it shouldn't be hard to at least try to engage in the subject a bit more intentionally," because, I mean, it hasn't stopped white women from being the center of attention for diversity and inclusion efforts for decades.Mary-Frances: Right, exactly. Yeah, no. I think you're right, and so in the book Black Fatigue I question whether, you know--so to a certain extent yes, I guess I would agree that black men benefit from patriarchy, but it's more intra-culture than it is inter-culture.Zach: Right, 'cause black men ain't out here about to just be out here disrespecting white women at work.Mary-Frances: Right. Yes, there you go. Yeah, not unless [?]--nobody better know about it anyway, right? [laughs]Zach: Well, shoot. [laughs] Well, and that's the thing that blows my mind. Like, I had a conversation. I'll never forget. This was some years ago. I had a conversation with somebody who tried to, like, insinuate that the reason why I spoke so much at work was because, you know, I was the only man, and perhaps because as a man I'm used to dominating conversations. And I said, "Look, I might be the only man in this space, but I'm also the only black person in this space, and certainly the only black man," and I said, "So if you think that the reason why I'm quote-unquote dominating this conversation is because I'm a man and y'all are a bunch of white women, that's false." I said, "I would actually be more akin to being quiet," as it took me time to find my voice as a black man in white spaces. I said, "I would challenge you to ask why you would use the language that I'm dominating anything by simply raising my voice in a meeting," right? But there's, like, this--I agree with you. I think that there's a, like, lack of nuance when we talk about even how patriarchy is mobilized for black men. I think black men are benefiting from patriarchy with other black people. They don't benefit from patriarchy, like, from--like, if it's me or Karen, Karen is gonna win out.Mary-Frances: Right, exactly. And for reasons like I was saying earlier. These studies show, you know, a tall--you know, you've got your stature if you will, that's a negative. You've got the color that's a negative, right? And so yeah, in white spaces, I think that it is an intersectionality in white spaces. You're black and you're a man. It's a marginalized identity.Zach: So, you know, your colleague Brittany Harris, VP of learning and innovation at The Winters Group, who we've had on in the past, has said that power is the silent P in this work. I'd love to hear more from you on the concept of power and how it fits into this engagement of workplace equity.Mary-Frances: Yeah. I mean, it is very much at the center, and it's complex, and when folks have power, why would they want to give it up? So I am not a proponent of power and privilege discussions with novices in this work. So folks who have not--I'm talking about people who are trying to teach, people who are trying to teach who have not had years of kind of understanding how all this plays out, I'm not in favor of going in and telling them that they have power and privilege. Yeah, I have it and I want to keep it. [laughs] Right? I mean, why would someone want to give that up? [?] Black people standing in front of a bunch of white men talking about, "You have power and privilege." Yeah. And so [they're?] like, "Yeah, what's wrong with that?" [laughs] I mean, they don't say that, but. And the other thing is how do they relinquish that power? I mean, that's really difficult to do. And the other problem that I have with that--so yeah, there's this inequitable power dynamic, but the other problem that I have with that is that we are accepting that we don't have power. We're rendering ourselves powerless, right? And so in the corporate world what is the key term? Empower. We want to empower our people. E-M, right? Empower, right? That is somebody giving you their power. So this is part of the corporate speak, you know, that I don't like, right? It's part of the dominant culture of corporate speak. I should have written about that one in my book. I might still. Anyway, I want to turn that around, that E-M to M-E. Me power. I have power. And so we have agency, but we don't take it. We don't use it because we have internalized that we don't have the power, we don't have power, and we cannot continue to--this is one of the trends I'd like to see, not to continue to talk to folks about power and just use our power, not to magnify the inequities. So everybody knows that if you're a white man in a corporation and whatnot and you're the manager or the leader or the director or the whatever, everybody knows you got power, right? [laughs] You know? You gotta tell me you have power? Why you gotta tell me that? Right? And so I think that there are other ways to claim power. I think that part of that is just the confidence that we come with, the self-concept that we come with. I think that we have to be ready to leave spaces, because there are consequences for us exercising power, and we have to have some safety nets, more safety nets than we have. So I left, you know, some 30 something years ago. I just stepped out on faith, I mean, 'cause I have a strong faith, and I didn't know what was gonna happen, but I just knew I couldn't stay there. We do know that black women, they're 40% more likely to start their own businesses than any other group, right? Because we recognize that it's traumatizing, and so this whole idea of--so who came up with the idea of power and power and privilege? White folks. To tell us that there's a power inequity... Surprise, surprise. And you know what? We're not gonna change that by telling white people that they have power. That is not gonna change that. The only thing that's gonna change it is for us to claim our power and to recognize that we have it. Zach: I love it. No, I'm right there with you.Mary-Frances: Right? [laughing] Stop telling white folks what they already know, that they got power. They already know that.Zach: No, that's true. Like, them not, like, screaming it from the rooftops doesn't mean that they don't know that.Mary-Frances: Well, exactly. Why would I scream it from the rooftops? Again, the dominant group, it's not something that they probably even--even when we call their attention to it, there are many who will want to say, "Uh-huh. And let me figure out how I'm gonna maintain it." There might be others who are curious. "Hm, there is this dynamic. Maybe I should, you know, do something to work on that," but the forces are so strong and entrenched, right, over 400 years of entrenchment, that it's not gonna change. You know, two or three or the small groups that you might get who are all for shifting that power dynamic, they're not strong enough to overcome that larger group who wants to maintain the status quo. So we just have to take it. We have to grab the power. We have to first of all understand we have it already. It's not grabbing anything. We already have it. We just have to use it and accept that there will be consequences sometimes for using that power, and if we don't have the strong safety nets in our community to, you know, accept and to protect those folks who, you know, get fired, you know, are out there, you know, being called out on social media because they're telling the truth or, you know, whatever it might be. We as a people don't support and protect our own as much as we should.Zach: Man, that's, like, a whole separate [?], and what we need to do is make sure we bring you back on when your book is closer to being published and talk about that, because I do think that, you know, how we--so, you know, we had Robin DiAngelo on some time ago, and she talked about white solidarity and the concept of essentially the formal or informal closing of ranks that white folks do to protect one another, often times at the detriment or harm of black and brown folks, and yet I don't--you know, because of colonization and because of just internalized oppression, you know, we don't have that I don't think in the same--Mary-Frances: We don't, yeah.Zach: And that's created so many challenges for us. I mean, since antebellum to today, right? Like, we've had so many issues because we don't necessarily practice to the same degree, protection of one another. So let's do this. You know, as you look across these leadership groups, especially during this pandemic, what are some of the top things you believe that majority leadership groups are doing today that undermine their own workplace equity efforts?Mary-Frances: They have not educated themselves, so they are not--they think that they know, they think that their good intentions are good enough. So I've heard leaders say, "I don't care if it's the right thing to do for business," you know, the business case that we talked about earlier, "I just think it's the right thing to do, so now go forth and do it." However, because they don't have an understanding of the history or they know the history that was told wrong, they really don't know what to do. So they're making wrong decisions based on ignorance or, you know, a lack of information. I think the second thing that majority leadership does, particularly in the corporate world, is that they still have to speak to and answer to shareholders, and so they're not going to do anything that is going to, you know, jeopardize that. And so even when you're looking at board members, and what I hear often times is, you know, "Oh, the board won't go for that," or "We've gotta satisfy the board." Well, you need to change the board then. The board may not be--you know, you may not have the right people, because boards are tokenized [when] they have one token black person and one, you know, token woman on the board, right? So those are two things, and I think during the pandemic, I think because of this ignorance they are just not aware, big companies are just not aware of the world that some of the folks on the lowest rung face, and so when you say, you know, "shelter in place, stay home," that home may not be safe. That home may be filled with violence, right? You know, you make decisions about "Who are essential workers and who are not essential workers?" and you don't--you know, are you thinking about the health--again, talking with a client today, you know, talking about some of their contingent, you know, workforce, and they were saying, you know, "Well, are we gonna pay the sick pay or aren't we gonna pay the sick pay?" You know, [?], and so all of these kinds of questions, and they realized that "Yeah, we absolutely need to do that," and so I don't think that there's enough understanding of what marginalized groups face regardless of their socio-economic. So they're making decisions from their own lens, from their own--I'll use the word privileged--from their own privileged lens, and they're missing things. It's coming to light, right? A lot of this stuff is now coming to light, but some of the earlier decisions missed just the horrific impact that this is having on everybody, but particularly those who are in the lowest low end of the economic chain.Zach: Mary-Frances, this has been an incredible conversation. You know, I'd love to make sure that I give you space to talk a little bit more about The Winters Group, what you're most excited about, what you're looking forward to, even during times as uncertain and extraordinary as these. I'd love to just give you space to talk a little bit more about your company. Mary-Frances: Yeah, so we're looking forward to, you know, transforming ourselves as we always do, but this pandemic has made it absolutely imperative, and we've already been doing virtual learning, but we are looking at innovative ways to do virtual, ways that other people are not doing virtual. You know, we have whiteboards, and we have ways that we can break people out into groups. Like, the technology allows that, but I think the ways that we're doing it--we're doing simulations, and so I think this is an opportunity for us to be really, really innovative in terms of how we deliver our message. I did a virtual keynote, you know, a few weeks ago. I think it's also an opportunity for us to continue our [?] of the corporate message and the social justice message, because they have certainly come together with COVID-19 in terms of just what I was just talking about, how we see how marginalized people are even more marginalized. You know, as the saying goes, "When the world gets a cold, black people get pneumonia. When the world gets pneumonia, black people die," and so we're seeing that now, and I think it's the opportunity for us to even more strongly advocate for the intersection of social justice and corporate.Zach: Man, thank you so much, Mary-Frances. This has been phenomenal. And y'all, that does it for us on the Living Corporate podcast. You know we do this every week. Coming to y'all with real talk in a corporate world. Make sure you check us out everywhere, okay? So you pull up your Google or your, I don't know, Bing, or your Yahoo or whatever search engine machine you're using, and you just type in Living Corporate. We're gonna pop up there, okay? Make sure you check out the show notes. Make sure you check out The Winters Group. Check out all the work that they're doing. Shout-out to The Winters Group and all of their incredible work. Shout-out to black women out here holding everybody down per usual. Thank you for all of your work. And shoot, 'til next time, we'll catch y'all. This has been Zach. You've been listening to Mary-Frances Winters, CEO and founder of The Winters Group, leadership, diversity, equity and inclusion consulting firm. Been out here laying the groundwork for y'all, setting legacies, and [they're] probably your favorite consultant's favorite consulting agency, okay? They've been out here. They've been doing the work. 'Til next time. Peace.

Zach has the honor of sitting down to chat with God-is Rivera, Twitter's first ever global director of culture and community, about recognizing power in digital communities. She talks about how her passion for journalism and storytelling led her to her role at Twitter and shares the ways she sees people creating a sense of community on the platform today. She also comments on the trends she sees happening in digital community building over the next year or so. Check the links in the show notes to connect with God-is!Connect with God-is on Twitter. She's also on LinkedIn and Instagram.Find out how the CDC suggests you wash your hands by clicking here.Help food banks respond to COVID-19. Learn more at FeedingAmerica.org.Visit our website.TRANSCRIPTZach: What's up, y'all? It's Zach with Living Corporate, and okay, so look. We know Ms. Rona is out here. Not to minimize or, you know, de-emphasize the stark reality and grievous nature of this global pandemic, but we want to make sure that we're keeping our spirits and attitudes high, and so we know that it's wild out here. We know that folks whole lives are changing. We're adjusting to different types of normal, re-identifying what normal means, and, you know, you can rest assured that in the midst of all of this stuff going on that Living Corporate is gonna be here, you know what I mean? So, you know, it's interesting. I've had people, you know, send me messages and be like, you know, "This diversity and inclusion stuff, like, you shouldn't expect that your podcast, this platform, y'all's blog, the learning platform that y'all are trying to build and whatever, for that to really take precedent when we're in the middle of a pandemic," and what I've constantly had to remind people is that, look, folks on the margins will always be on the margins. Folks were on the margin before this pandemic, and they're on the margins now, and so, like, Living Corporate and the work that we're doing and the work that all equity, community, culture, belonging professionals are doing is all the more important now. And so it's with that that I'm really excited about the guest that we have today, you know? I'm not even going to read this long ol' bio. I'ma just get into it. We have God-is Rivera. God-is, welcome to the show.God-is: Hey, guys. What's up? Thanks for having me.Zach: What's up? How are you and your loved ones doing during this time?God-is: You know, we are so blessed. I am in New York, in New York City, and my immediate family, my husband, my daughter, and my mom and aunt, who kind of--we all live in Westchester County--we're okay. Everyone's been healthy. I've got grandparents between Atlanta and South Carolina and, you know, thank God they have been adhering to staying at home. I had to do a little nudging in the beginning, but, you know, them old folks is trying to get to the buffet. [laughs]Zach: We gotta have a conversation about that, right? [laughs] And it's interesting because I've talked to other black folks, right, who have these parents who have lived through all types of stuff, so they're not really concerned about some invisible illness, right? You know what I mean? They'll just take some castor oil and they'll be fine, you know?God-is: Some tussin. [both laugh] For sure.Zach: They've seen much worse. But you're right though, it's a blessing to have family members who will listen. I know my dad--you know, my dad, he and I are very similar, so I told him--and my dad is 55--so I was like, "Hey, Dad. You know, y'all staying inside, right?" He's "Oh, son. No, no, no. You ain't gotta worry about me. I'm right at the house." I said, "Okay, good." [laughs]God-is: [laughs] That's so crazy. My mom's the same exact age as your dad, and, like, she was good. She was like, "Oh, I've been in the house." Like, my mom works remote anyway, you know, normally, and so it was the grandparents I was kind of like, "Come on, now, y'all," but they got it early and they're okay.Zach: Yeah, it's definitely the grandparents. Okay, so now look, I have a lot of questions for you, but first I gotta get into your name. Can we talk about God-is?God-is: [laughs] Yes, I can. You know, it's really kind of a simple story. I know it's a different name, but the story is kind of simple. So my mom, she was a teenage mom, you know, just trying to figure it out, from the Bronx, New York. Shout-out BX. Zach: What's up? Yerp.God-is: Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yerp. [both laugh] And, you know, she was trying to figure it out at the time, and she had this dream when she was about 7 months pregnant she told me, and it was just her great-grandmother who was speaking to her and kind of was like, "You have to name this child God-is," and so--actually in the dream I think she said it was "God-is-love," and she was like, "I don't know. This is so different." You know, my mom's name is Melissa, so. And she just felt like it was such a strong feeling that she just--she was like, "I have to follow this," so she went ahead and did it, and it's so interesting that, you know, having this name for over 30 years, I could never imagine my name being anything else. I never was ridiculed for it. You know, I've had a lot of conversations and great conversation starters, but it is--I've always felt so comfortable in it, and I think for me it really reminds me every day to just continue to step into my power and the amazing kind of gift that I was given just through my namesake. So it's not kind of a crazy story, but, you know, an interesting one I guess.Zach: Nah, nah. It's not crazy at all, but it is very interesting 'cause I saw it and, you know, it's also really--so I'm from the South, right, so, like, my family is, like, very churched. So I was talking to my mom about--[both laugh]--I was talking to my mom about this interview that I was going to be doing. I said, "Look, I finally got this, like, global leader. She has this incredible, like, huge profile, and I'm just really excited to interview her," and she was like, "What's her name?" I said, "Her name is God-is." She said, "God--Goddess?" I said, "No, no, not Goddess. No, God-is," and she said, "God-is?" And so I'm like, "Momma, just hold on." And so it's funny, 'cause I was like, "I gotta make sure I ask. For the culture. I need to know." Okay, so let's talk about your journey getting to Twitter. Like, how did your passion for journalism and storytelling lead you here?God-is: Hm. Okay. So that's a great question. It's really interesting to me when I think about, you know, being at Twitter now. My whole career was shaped by social media, and, you know, when I was trying to figure out, you know, Young God-is back in, you know, high school or, you know, trying to figure out what I wanted to do with my life, this didn't exist, you know? I think MySpace, it kind of sort of started when I got to school, and it was just one of those things that I knew that I wanted to be a journalist. I love writing, I love editorial writing, but what I wanted to do more than just, you know, kind of general journalism is I knew I wanted to work in black media. I wanted to work as a writer or an editor. I wanted to make sure that I was elevating stories and spreading awareness for the people that I felt, you know, had been silenced, which was my community, the black community, and then others. So I think just through that kind of passion I went into journalism, and I also am part of those millennials who's like, "Shout-out to the second economic recession we're coming up on!" [laughs] Because it was like, "Yo, I thought we had one in a lifetime, but oh, we doing two? Oh, okay." So, you know, getting out of school for me was right around that time, and it was just like, "Yo, I'm just trying to make my mom proud and not be unemployed," and I kind of found my way into marketing. Even though I wanted to do journalism and I continued to moonlight and really try to make that happen, I started to really become into marketing, and it was just like, "Let me just get a job." But in doing that I think, you know, I realized that marketing also tells those stories, and there's a chance to represent people and really elevate people who aren't always seen, and that's kind of what led me on that journey. And I will also say, you know, mid-2000s, 2006, 2007, when I started my career, it was always like--when it comes to social media it was like, "Who's the 23-year-old in the office?" Like, "I don't know about that Facebook," you know what I mean? "I don't know about that Twitter. I don't know about that, you know? Just tell her to do it," and that kind of attitude that of course over time become much more--brands and companies began to take it much more seriously, but that was kind of how I got my start, you know? I was a writer who could craft posts or ideas for these platforms, and I also knew how to actually post them, not like many other people in the office who were a little older than me. So that was kind of how I started my journey. So it was a little bit of serendipity, but also still me chasing this kind of passion to tell the story and represent for people who were not always able to do that.Zach: You know, and I really want to understand, like, you know, your experience in social strategy, because you're right. Like, there was a time when it was like, you know, we'd look at Facebook or we'd look at Twitter and we'd--like, we'd scoff at that. Like, I remember I had an internship where I created essentially, like, a social media--like, an ambassador program for this recruitment company, and everyone had a social media profile, and you were supposed to essentially, like, build your brand on social media, which would then drive, you know, business to the startup or whatever, right? But you're essentially building presence on Twitter. And this was, like, in 2010--God-is: Hm, those early days. [laughs]Zach: Yeah, so people were like, "What is this?" They were like, "Oh, this is cute, but this doesn't mean anything," and so I'm curious as to, like, what did it look like to take your experience in the social strategy work and, like, help it inform what you do for Twitter today? Like, can we talk a little bit about that?God-is: Yes. You know, I'm so grateful to the years that I spent really learning content strategy, learning social strategy, and I think it goes back to kind of that point about knowing that I wanted to kind of help elevate stories, and so what happened was that I really started to understand that there was a lot of power--you know how you think about in the court system it's like the prosecutor has all the power, right? In advertising creators have a lot of that power, but the story is sold and the plan comes from strategy, and I really took a liking to that. I realized that, you know, for me, what thrills me about strategy was that I have a chance to really kind of help build that story. I have a chance to figure out "Who is the people that we want to see that story? Where does it show up? How does it show up, and who is in that?" So I think for me, like, I really started to understand that there was a power in that, and then at the same time other brands realized that there is a return in this medium that was kind of a throwaway, right? There is something coming from when we post and then people around the world are talking about this instantly. And I think it was kind of two things happening at once. You had also more access to, you know, phones and technology that could help people kind of see things in an instant and, you know, thinking about campaigns that you were gonna through display or print long ago and then posting something in 90 seconds, you have, you know, celebrities in the public answering you about your product. You know, that's something that's just invaluable. So I think that's kind of what really started to help me understand that even more, and so I really became a planner, and I got to do it for, you know, both large and small brands, but what I think really kind of intrigued me the most is that what I realized about strategy is that there's always a target, right? Who do you want to see this message? Who do we want to respond to this? And also who is in this message? How does it look? How does it show up? What experience is it detailing? And I think that that, as I worked more in advertising, that was very homogeneous, you know? It was kind of the same target, the same people, over and over again, and so even me working in those positions, my own experience was left out, so I started to be really, really interested in, you know, "How are we gonna stop making this mistake? How can we stop ignoring communities that are actually shifting the culture but we're not even including them in who we're speaking to, nor their experience in what we're putting out into the world?" So I knew that through strategic direction that I could try and maybe shed a light on that, and that's really kind of where I focused. So just in thinking through audiences that matter, audiences that have been left out, as a true strategist I need that full story. I can't actually do that job well only looking at one small piece of an audience or a compelling story, and so I use kind of just that literal sense, taking the emotion out, because I'm a black woman who wanted to see that experience and I wanted to see other people's experiences as well, but you can't deny that you need a holistic kind of view to do your job well if you're speaking to the world and you're saying that's what you're doing. So that kind of interest in better understanding communities and what matters to them and how they want to be seen is kind of how I started along this path of informing the work that I do today, which is really working to connect with marginalized communities and make sure that they're amplified.Zach: So, you know, that leads me really well into the next question. So, like, I want to talk a bit about position and power, right? You sit in a global role in one of the biggest brands on the planet. God-is: Ooh, you're making me sound cool. I like it.Zach: I mean, your name is God-is. So how do you manage the responsibility that you have as a leader? Because I would imagine you have internal pressures to, like--like you said, there are things that you want to see realized and there are things that you want to achieve. There's a legacy and part of a longer term roadway that you're riding on, but then there's also external pressures I would imagine because of the intersectionality of your own identity, right? Like, you think about who you represent and what people maybe project onto you. And it's like, what does it look like to manage both sets of pressures while being one of the few in these spaces?God-is: Wow. I really appreciate that question. It often doesn't come in that way [laughs] that acknowledges some of those internal and external pressures, but I think what I love the most about that question is that--I just appreciate you using the word power. I think power is extremely important. I think that, you know, as they continue on in their career that, you know, positions can sometimes be a dime a dozen. They can come along and come and go, but they don't always include power, and I think that power affords this kind of real chance to create something new, to affect change and really challenge systems that aren't working and to actually be truly heard while you do it. So I very much am appreciative, but also just very thoughtful about how I utilize the power that I'm grateful that I've been able to have at Twitter. I really feel like a leader that is heard who's able to challenge and create in a way that is something that's supported, which I know is not always the case specifically for some of us that are kind of, like you said, one of the onlys. I'm not at Twitter, but, you know, in this industry, absolutely. So I think that that's important, and I think about the word pressure too. I don't know that I--it can get overwhelming, but I don't know that I would call it pressure as much as I would call it maybe an expectation or a commitment. So I think sometimes I get overwhelmed because just I--there's so much I want to do and get done, you know, for the communities I serve, but the way that I kind of balance myself and stay that way is that I just have to know that every single day I am working towards what I promised, right? Every day, and that my mission, my overall mission, my integrity, it stays intact every step of the way and that I know I'm not letting up any time soon, and I try and live that externally and internally so that I can say, "Look, I am continuing on this road. I know that it's important to me. There has been nothing that has, you know, taken me off course," whether it be your own ego or just kind of getting lazy. I know that I must continue on this mission, and so that's kind of the responsibility that I feel being in these spaces, that I have to continue to do this work to make things better and that I have to hold the door open for other people to do this work with me as well.Zach: You know, and let's talk about the work, right? So you're Twitter's first ever global director of culture and community. Now, let me just tell you, when I heard the title I said, "Ayo." [laughs]God-is: [laughs] I was trying to do big things. I'm trying to do big things.Zach: I said, "Yo, wait a second!" I was like... I mean, I don't know. It just--that sounds like a big title with a big, big, big bag. I was like, "Man." I mean, I was praising Him for you. I was over here [blessings come in sfx]. I was like--[both laughing]God-is: I love it, I love it. I appreciate you. Thank you.Zach: No, no, let's talk about what this means and what your responsibility is and what your team's responsibility is.God-is: Yeah, you know, and I think--you know, I would have to say, like I said before, giving some credit to Twitter, well, the credit to Twitter, for noticing that this was something that was a gap for them and that they wanted to fill. I would like to just maybe talk a little bit about how I got this job at Twitter. It wasn't the traditional kind of application way, I guess I'll say, because I think that how I got the job also speaks to literally the work that I'm doing now. And so, just as we mentioned before, my work in social strategy, I had really started to try and find examples of how I could explain and display communities that were shifting culture, that were forming together across social platforms, and then how those kind of phenomenons could be completely missed, you know, at agencies or with huge brands and how these things were formulating and happening, but because there was almost this cultural blind spot, nobody even knew what was going on. And one of the communities that I was particularly fascinated by was Black Twitter. I think that to me it was just such an incredible just example of how a historically marginalized community kind of uses their own cultural and shared experience to come together through technology and then literally shift culture, shift the narrative in a way that's very democratized, which is kind of what Twitter offers with this kind of space. And so I had started just a small presentation about that in the ad world, and it kind of made its rounds. I had done it at a couple conferences, and I had also made sure that I formed a pretty decent relationship with Twitter comms. I didn't want to get no C&D. [laughs] Like, "Who this girl think she is out here [?] telling me how to--" You know, and I want to make sure that, you know, I didn't know if they had something. I didn't want to step on any toes. And we developed a very nice working relationship, and, you know, from there they had started thinking about their first kind of all hands on deck, all-employee conference, which is called OneTeam. The first one they did was in 2018. And they actually invited me to speak about Black Twitter and do my presentation at their conference, and I was like, "Wow, you want me to do it? Okay," and so when I went I said--you know, I kind of was like, "Well, normally I do this presentation for the ad world, and at the end of my presentation I say, "And these are the people you need to be hiring. These are the people you need to be partnering with. Do not miss groups like this,"" and this is just one example of so many groups, you know, that we need to be making sure that we better pay attention to, but at Twitter, you know, I said, "Well, I want to kind of challenge them a little differently," and my challenge at the end of that presentation was how was Twitter better connecting with the voices from these groups, you know? Do they have plans for a cultural department or something that focuses on these communities in this way? And lo and behold. [laughs] So after getting off stage I was just so, you know, again, just incredibly blessed to be approached by some of the leadership there--shout-out to Jack, Leslie Berland, Lara Cohen, Nola Weinstein, who really set things in motion for me to come to the company. They just felt like, "This clicks. You get it, you get us, and this is absolutely something that we need to focus on." So again, I think just that acknowledgement of the importance of understanding these communities, the fact that it birthed literally this work and this role and this practice now, my team at Twitter, is just something I'm proud of and I think the community should be proud of as well, because I'm not talking about myself in my presentation. I'm talking about these collective voices who have literally shifted history and brought joy and accountability in ways that are just incredible. So I think that's kind of part of the story I think is important to put in context. Not everyone knows that story. I think it's important. But, you know, thinking through my own challenge now--I didn't realize at the time I was challenging myself. [laughs] It was very meta if you think about it, but I came in to solve that problem and kind of figure out what that looks like, so my team specifically focuses on building kind of these real world relationships with the voices from these marginalized communities who are active and who love and are loud on Twitter. So I wanted a team, you know, who really could help to continue to recognize the incredible power of these voices. Like I talked about before, they drive conversation, and they really shape culture on Twitter. The other piece of that is that as we look at how they use the platform, how they use their service and what they speak about, we have consistent learnings and insights. So what my team does is really kind of help our partners across the business understand how these communities both embrace and experience our service, good, bad and ugly, and so by doing that what we really hope to do is build a bridge between the service of Twitter and the people that it serves, and that's something that I think was really important to me, that we started to become this sort of connective tissue, and the goal in that is to really help empower Twitter to build the best product, but the best product that reflects the richness of the people who use it. [laughs] And so, you know, we can start to evolve how we amplify the conversations that are most important to these groups. So just really making sure that these people's experience, their conversations, what's happening, how they use it, use Twitter, that it's on the map, that it's a part of how we think about building our product, that it's a part of how we think about our marketing. It's embedded in every piece and fabric across our organization. I hope that makes sense. [laughs]Zach: It does make sense. In fact, let me go ahead and just drop this real quick. [Flex bomb sfx] A quick Flex bomb. That's how I felt as you were sharing--God-is: [laughing, imitating air horns]Zach: Oh, yeah. No, we got that--no, we got that too. [air horns sfx] For sure.God-is: Ayyy.Zach: Ayyy. So--[both laugh] No, no, it makes a lot of sense, and I 100% agree with you that--first of all, like, I wish we could just take a step back, and what I love about the work that you're doing and what you're highlighting is the meta narrative of black influence, like, just in culture period, right? Like, before Twitter we was already, like, shaking the globe. Like, we've influenced art, fashion, language, dance. Everything.God-is: Yep. We been 'bout that life.Zach: About it, and so we just so happen to be on this--anything that we jump on, like, we make it better, you know what I mean? God-is: Right, right.Zach: And so when I think about, like, Black Twitter, and I think about, you know, you're absolutely right that there's something about this community that is able to hop on, like, a platform and then suddenly, like, change narratives or, like, shift attention, and Twitter is a phenomenal tool for that. I think it's--like, it's gonna go down... this is not an ad for Twitter. Like, it's just the truth. Like, and you think about--[both laugh] But, like, when you look back... like, so my daughter is 5 weeks old. God-is: Oh, congrats. Zach: Thank you very much, yeah. She is adorable, and, like, as I've just kind of come to the reality of her being here, like, I think about the things that she's gonna learn in school, and I think about, like, "She's probably going to--" Like, when they study, like, technology that influenced generations or just different seasons of life or activism or whatever the case is, like, they're going to look at--Twitter is gonna be one of the technologies that they talk about, because it is one of the first times that we've seen, like, large-scale democratization of access and data and information and conversation and just general communication, like, across--and, like, for free. Like, relatively for free, right? You have to have Wi-Fi and stuff, but there's no direct cost to get on Twitter. Like, you just jump on it. And so I want to talk a little bit about how you see people today create a sense of community on Twitter. Like, what does that look like from your perspective?God-is: Yeah, and that's what's just been so fascinating. I share that kind of sentiment with you, and sometimes it's almost just incredible to think about, when we're kind of heads down in the office working we're like, "Oh, my God." Like, you know, "This is gonna be in the history books." Like, the work that we're doing right now, just because of where we are and what we're focused on, will be in history. I used to always say--I have an 8-year-old daughter. A little older than 5 weeks. But I always think about, "I just want to be in her history book for doing something that mattered," you know? And I think that, you know, the work that we can do here, it can be that important and impactful, and it keeps me grounded and it keeps me humble and it keeps me fighting even on days that are frustrating. And so I think also the thing that I love to see is how people create community on Twitter. I love that you said that one of our tenets is always to keep the platform free so that there can be that access for people to have these kinds of conversations and this public discourse, and so we kind of see people create community on our platform--there are kind of a couple different lenses. So, you know, there's obviously some interest-based communities where, you know, NBA Twitter is definitely out here. I mean, it's a lot going on every Sunday now with this Jordan doc, and you kind of see that happen, but that's a hugely active community, and that's around a shared passion. An interest, right?Zach: The Homecoming Twitter. Remember?God-is: Yes! Yes. Beychella Twitter. [laughs] Yeah, so we see that. We even see things that people may not even realize. Like, Plant Twitter is huge. Like, people share all types of, you know, just tips and tricks and beautiful photos of plants and flowers and so forth in their homes and gardens, and then we see--you know, there's obviously some professions that come. Academic Twitter is huge. I've learned a lot just about Education Twitter, Finance, and then there's also locations of course, and then of course we get into kind of those affinities and the allyship and the movements, and those are the Black Lives Matter and #MeToo, and we see a huge coalescence around those kind of moments. And then of course, you know, kind of where we get into my work is around those identity-based communities, and that's when we think about Black Twitter, Native Twitter, you know, Differently-abled Twitter, you know, Latinx--Zach: So educational.God-is: Yeah, you know? And Latinx, LGBTQ+ Twitter, you know, there's tons of intersections and sub-communities within there, and I think that is what's so fascinating. You know, just thinking about even just those groups that I just named, they don't have equal footing, you know? Even of each other, in society, to be able to tell their stories in their voices, but on Twitter, you know, that is democratized. It was somewhat of an equal playing field when it comes to people being able to share what matters to them or their experiences. So that's kind of exactly where my team focuses. I focus the most on those--I am here to serve specifically those identity-based communities, and, you know, again, this is not something that--no one ticks a box obviously and says what they are or what community they ascribe to when they sign up for Twitter, but through inferences and understanding that there is an allyship or an affinity there or an identity through conversation is what's really important to us, and so that's why I dig into how these communities have kind of leveraged Twitter in unique ways, and what we're seeing is kind of people who have shared experiences or shared kind of identities, we're seeing them kind of just corral around subjects in different ways, and I think it's great that we're able to see even people shape when they're challenging discourse, you know? Mainstream media may report on something--I don't know, something as simple as, like, gentrification, right, where it's an article and it's about, "Oh, look at the new grocery store that's in Brooklyn, and it's great, right?" It is nice that there is a new grocery store in Brooklyn, but then we're able to also see that that displaces people who lived there for 30 years. You know, is it construction in a playground area or something? And so I think it allows people to have this kind of 360 degree conversation that they've been craving but was only kind of relegated to the way that these groups could physically meet up in spaces, in physical spaces, and now we're seeing that kind of much more decentralized. Zach: God-is, it's almost as if you talk to people all the time, 'cause you're helping me--[both laughing] you're helping me segue really well into my next question, because, and I talked about it at the top, I'm talking about it again. So the rona, or as some folks say "that rona," is actively outside, and finding meaningful connection is more important now than ever. What are trends you see happening in digital community building over the next year or so?God-is: Wow. You know, I mean, this is--I'm so tired of people saying "unprecedented." Like, Lord, we need another word, right? Like, what is another word we could use? But I think, you know, it's been so interesting. Again, as a strategist, the study of human behavior--and I often think about the work that I do is more of almost a digital anthropology, because you get to watch how behavior shifts around different ideas, different events, and of course different just huge, I guess, news stories or health crises that are affecting us like the rona. So I think one of the things that I've really seen is that I think that we're gonna continue to see people really trying to create space and find opportunity for these really important inter-community discussions around mental wellbeing and wholeness. I've seen a lot of discussions between several communities about the idea that this is the first time many people have had in most working lives to slow down, and so they're able to kind of foster these deeper connections through technology, you know? We're looking at a lot of screens now, but we're trying to make the most of it and really focus on that wellness, and so now that we have that chance to kind of slow down, it's helping more of us stay balanced, more empathetic, more connected. I hope that we see kind of how important taking a moment is and that that continues. The other thing I think--oh, boy. Rona done--it done started a lot of stuff, right? [both laugh] Zach: It has, or exposed a lot of things too.God-is: Yeah. Oh, yeah, exposed. I think, in terms of technology too, I think that this will continue. I mean, we've already seen just the type of connective creativity that's come out of people just being in the house, right? People just being relegated to having to shelter in place, and so I think that we'll see more of this kind of agile, nimble creativity, and then also amplifying and uplifting those people who are leaning into that. So I think we were kind of in this space before where we were sort of fortunate. We never had to really think about being immediately without certain spoils of society, and now we kind of all know that that can shift drastically in a nanosecond and that it also can be out of our control too. So I think that, you know, industries, companies, brands, governments and individuals will really start to think about how they can better stay agile and quickly adapt for moments like this since it's just in our psyche now and it's not leaving. So I think thinking through what are the tools--you know, even myself, I'm sitting here right now, I've got my microphone, I've got my speakers. I ordered a new desk, you know what I mean? Like, [?]--and I'm fortunate to even be able to do that, but I think people are really thinking through however best in their capability, how can they be sure that they're able to stay connected and be creative and pursue during times that are just uncertain.Zach: You know, as we think about--to your point around, like, privilege, and I'm in the same position as well. Like, my job allows me to work remotely. I'm on paternity leave. When I come back, like, there's gonna be, like, a phased return, and then--you know, like, I'm in a position where I'm being handled relatively gingerly because of just the benefits that my job provides, like, absent of this pandemic but that are particularly beneficial and helpful to me right now. I think about though the folks who don't have the same amount of access I do, right, who look like us, and I'm curious about, you know, can we think about technology and marginalized communities having a more mutually beneficial relationship, and in what ways do you think that we can help drive more access and accessibility for these communities so that they can actually be on platforms where they can be heard?God-is: Right. I mean, that's--I think about it too, you know? I saw an article recently about some people having literally, like, class guilt, you know, almost, over this shelter-in-place, because it just affects so many of us differently. I myself as well can work remotely where so many people can't, so many of the front line workers, essential workers, who have to go out and make sure that we can continue to live, even at the risk of their own health and the health of their families. I do think, you know, again, just going back to that love of strategy, like, the first thing I always do and I always say should be done is listening. I think that so many people jump into trying to figure out what to do before they actually listen to what people need, and that's why I'm really proud of kind of the structure and program that we've built at Twitter, which is the Twitter Voices program, which my team created and runs, and that's kind of just literally a program that allows to try and identify some of these powerful voices coming out of these communities and then set up a sustained kind of relationship with them. How do we check in on them? How do we even have, like, a quick meeting or a lunch? Now a virtual lunch. But creating that kind of ongoing dialogue between the people who need to be heard so that we're aware of what can be done, and I think that's really important to do, because I think that it's important for us to listen to people who need to be heard, and then they can not only get the help that they [?] but also hold us accountable as well. But I think that what's important is that we continue to give these people kind of a microphone and a podium, you know? We need to make sure that they're not being ignored, especially during a time like now. You know, I think back, maybe the early '90s--let's just say this pandemic was 1992 or something. You know, the people who were most affected, the people who are not getting those loans or the PPE, the people who are being forced to go back to work or grapple with losing unemployment even if they feel it's unsafe, we would have no mechanism to really hear them writ large, you know? We would have no mechanism to hear them, you know, their conversations and how they're affected across the country, across the world, and so I think now it's important for technology to make sure that we continue to provide that space, provide that microphone, provide that podium so that these people can be heard, and for people like myself who work in these groups, we need to continue to focus on continuing this momentum of amplifying those conversations, helping to spread awareness on why it's important to listen to these groups, and that will enable us to build better products, you know, create better systems, and honestly overall a better society that should be inclusive to all, and it also allows us to tear down what's not working, and I think that maybe if there is any small silver lining to what's happening is we're seeing so many systems just almost buckle because they were not built to truly serve everyone, and that's something I think that, while that's happening, we need to be sure that we're in partnership, we're listening to and we're rallying behind the people that need us the most.Zach: God-is, this has been an incredible conversation. God-is: Aw, thanks. This is great.Zach: No, this is super dope, and before we let you go, I just want to give you space. Where can people find you? Where can people connect with you at? And then any parting words or shout-outs?God-is: Oh, wow. So thank you so much for having me. This was awesome. This was a nice just break from the rona, [laughs] to get to wrap with you, so thank you again. Everybody can find me on Twitter of course @GodisRivera, G-O-D-I-S-R-I-V-E-R-A. I am terrible at email, so I won't even do that to y'all. [laughs] But if you hit on me Twitter I promise I'll hit you back. Also don't be afraid to slide in the DMs. And then lastly just--Zach: She does respond too. Like, not to cut you off.God-is: I do! See? [laughs]Zach: So y'all, like, months ago I tried to get God-is on the pod, and I think she was actually pretty new to the role. I didn't care, 'cause I was just like, "Yo, this is crazy!" So I slid in the DMs, and then she hit me back, and then, like, we weren't able to make it work, and I was like, "Dang, okay," and I felt like she curved me, and so I said, "Dang, okay," so then I DM'd you and I said, "Hey, you know, I'm sad that we weren't able to make it work, but hopefully we can stay in touch," and she hit me back, y'all. She said, "Yep. 'Sho will," and I said, "Oh, my gosh. Okay," and so then--and now here we are. So look, y'all. 'Cause some of y'all are [churched?] or spiritual. This is not a message to y'all to keep on. [?] So this is not me encouraging you to pester people. This is just me saying that God-is responds to DMs. All right, my bad. Please continue.God-is: No, I appreciate that. Thank you, because I know you probably cannot get me really any other way. Twitter is just where I'm at. This is even before I worked there, so it's very true. And also I think, you know, just one more shout-out to my team at Twitter. I wouldn't be able to delve into this work this way if it wasn't for the support and the consistent support that I get there, from leadership all the way down to my team. Shout-out to Culture & Community. Love you guys. Nola, an incredible leader, Leslie Berland, Jack Dorsey. You know, it's an incredible culture that allows us to be able to dig in and really do what we can to try and make a difference in the world, even if it means we make mistakes along the way. It's a really great, supportive environment, and I'm grateful for it. And just also a shout-out to the home team at home. My husband Jay, my daughter Jordan, my mom, my aunt. That's my home team that allows me to do this work the way that I do and try and serve as many people as I can. And I hope everybody out there stays safe. Thank you to all the front-line workers, the health care workers. Thank you guys so much for doing what you can for us. I hope to hold you guys down as much as you are holding us down.Zach: Wow. [round of applause sfx] Y'all, this has been Living Corporate. Look, you know what we do, right? 200+ episodes in. We're having conversations with executives, entrepreneurs, thought leaders, professors, activists, public servants, elected officials, all about what? Real talk in a corporate world. We center and amplify marginalized voices, underrepresented, underestimated, unaccounted voices in the workplace, and we do this for you every single week. Make sure you check us out. Just Google us, okay? We're all over Barack Obama's internet, right? You just Google Living Corporate, okay? So it's Living Corporate. Not Corporate Living. Corporate Living is the inverse of what I said. So you want to do Living Corporate, and, you know, if you're, like, old school and you gotta type it in the bar, you can do www.living-corporate--please say the dash--dot com. You can do livingcorporate.co, livingcorporate.org, livingcorporate.tv, livingcorporate.net, livingcorporate.us. We have all the livingcorporates, God-is, we just don't have livingcorporate.com. Australia owns livingcorporate.com. It's some--God-is: Dang it. [laughs]Zach: I know, right? But one day, one day the brand will be brolic enough that we will actually go and get livingcorporate.com. I'm just going to speak that. God-is: Yes, manifest it.Zach: I will manifest it, but today the vibrations and chakras are just not there. So look, y'all. Make sure you check us out. Shout-out to God-is. Shout-out to Twitter. Shout-out to your team. And then let's make sure that y'all check out all the links in the show notes. Y'all check out God-is. Please do not bombard her with DMs, okay? I can't imagine what her DMs look like, but she has offered. She has let you know that that's the way to reach her, but I'm just asking as a courtesy. Just think about what it is that you have to say, maybe share it with--you know, maybe write it down, you know, then send it, you know? Just help her help you help us, you know what I mean? 'Cause I can't imagine the nonsense you get in there. Anyway, all right, y'all. 'Til next time. This has been Zach. Peace.

Zach sits down to chat with Dr. Richard Orbé-Austin, a psychologist and a partner of Dynamic Transitions Psychological Consulting, LLP, about the psychology of impostor syndrome. Dr. Orbé-Austin breaks down the concept of impostor syndrome itself and talks a bit about how gaslighting can tie into and even exacerbate it. He also shares several practical ways impostor syndrome manifests in the workplace. Listen to the full show to learn a handful of methods to combat it on a personal level.Connect with Dr. Orbé-Austin on LinkedIn and Twitter.Check out DTPC's website by clicking here.Follow DTPC on social media. They're on LinkedIn and Facebook.Interested in Lisa and Richard's book? Find out more about it on Amazon.Find out how the CDC suggests you wash your hands by clicking here.Help food banks respond to COVID-19. Learn more at FeedingAmerica.org.Visit our website.TRANSCRIPTZach: What's up, y'all? It's Zach with Living Corporate, and look, man, you know what it is. And I always start with "Look, man, you know what it is," and I apologize for being gendered in my introduction, so let me start over. What's up, y'all? Y'all know what it is. It's Zach with Living Corporate, and we have real talk with real people in a corporate world, and this real talk is doing what? Centering and amplifying underrepresented voices at work, and man, we have a great guest. We have a great guest, really excited to have Dr. Richard Orbe-Austin. Now, is that right? Is it Orbe?Dr. Orbé-Austin: Yes. Yes, like sorbet.Zach: Aye. Haha. "Smooth Like Sorbet" Orbe, what's up? Bars. Dr. Orbe-Austin is a psychologist--I don't know why I started off like that. Dr. Richard Orbé-Austin is a psychologist and a partner of Dynamic Transitions Psychological Consulting, a career and executive coaching consultancy in New York City. Dr. Orbé-Austin has worked in the field of career and executive coaching for over 15 years, and was the founding director of NYU’s Graduate Student Career Development Center. In this capacity, he developed the strategic vision and led a team responsible for managing the career needs of over 14,000 graduate students in over 100 different disciplines. Prior to his tenure at NYU, Dr. Orbé-Austin served in a variety of leadership roles, including as the chief diversity officer at Baruch College-City University of New York and as president of the NY Association of Black Psychologists. Okay, so he's certified. Again, see, people come on this--you know what I'm saying, people, you know, will subversely kind of ask me, like, "Well, who do you even have on your podcast?" Y'all be trying to talk to me--you know, it's really a function of colonialist white supremacy, but we ain't gonna talk about it right now, how y'all try to come and challenge the credos of this show, but, you know what I'm saying, we have real ones over here, so don't test us, okay? Do not test us, mess around and, you know what I'm saying, pull your card. Don't play. [ow sfx] Dr. Orbé-Austin’s opinions and writings have appeared in a variety of publications, including Forbes, Fast Company, Diversity Executive, and ThriveGlobal. He earned his PhD in counseling psychology from Fordham University’s Graduate School of Education and his BA in psychology from NYU. His book, Own Your Greatness: Overcome Impostor Syndrome, Beat Self-Doubt, and Succeed in Life, published by Ulysses Press [and] co-authored by his partner Dr. Lisa Orbe-Austin, will be released in April 2020. The goal of this book is to provide a systematic way to eradicate impostor syndrome and help readers find their power so they can utilize it for their own goals and lead a more balanced life. What a bio. I feel like I gotta drop some air horns just for the fact that that was very, very dense and all very substantive and impressive. What's up? Come on. Drop 'em right here. [Flex bomb, then air horn sfx] Come on, let's go. How are you doing, Dr. Austin? Dr. Orbe-Austin, excuse me.Dr. Orbé-Austin: I am wonderful, Zach. It's a pleasure to meet with you and your wonderful audience, so I'm thrilled to be chatting with you today.Zach: Now, look, I don't want to spill too much tea, but I know your cousin, right, and his name is not Orbe-Austin, it's just Austin. Can you talk a little bit about the last name?Dr. Orbé-Austin: So yes, I want to always tell the story about--any time my wife and I go and present anywhere and we introduce ourselves people kind of give a look, and then I have to start by saying, "Look, just to get it out of the way, we're not brother and sister. We're actually husband and wife." So when we got married I actually took my wife's name. So her name was Lisa Orbe and my name was Richard Austin, and as we joined our families we joined our names. And so I think it's not traditional, I think, for a lot of people in society to see a man do that, so I think it throws people off, so I'm always kind of thrilled to talk about, you know, equity and equality and really being able to join families in that way.Zach: You know what? And shout-out to you, you knwo what I mean? Because, you know, you're rejecting patriarchy one bold move at a time. It's interesting how we normalize the idea that women's last names are just erased, you know what I mean? You know, it's not really cool, you knwo what I'm saying? Now, look, did my wife take my last name? Yes, okay? Would I hyphenate? Probably not because I'm not really that strong. I'm pretty insecure as a man, you know what I'm saying? But look, it takes a real man to, you know, admit that. Because it's funny, you know, I can come on this podcast and I can talk about rejecting patriarchal systems and all these kinds of things, but then if you ask me, you know, to supplant any privilege that I may have, I'm over here like, [hold on a minute there playa sfx]. You know, wait a second. We ain't gonna just--you know, I'm not giving up. Nah, but all jokes aside, that's awesome. I love that, and I was very curious about it from the beginning, and yes, definitely shout-out to Mrs. Orbe-Austin, your partner in crime and business and life, what's up? Let's talk about your journey though and why you got into psychology. Like, what was the path there?Dr. Orbé-Austin: The first reason I got into psychology is a pretty simplistic notion of psychology. So about eighth grade I always remember developing this advice column for my classmates called Ask Dr. Rich. So at the time I thought being a psychologist meant telling people what to do, and so, you know, as an eighth-grader with all the knowledge that I had at that time--Zach: All the answers.Dr. Orbé-Austin: Right, so why not, you know, do that? So I really enjoyed being able--and, you know, at that time it was usually relationship issues that people were writing in about, and I had my little column, and again, not that I had that great of experience in relationships, but I felt like I could provide something enough for people to seek my assistance. And then as I got a better understanding of what it meant to be a psychologist I came to realize that I could make a contribution down that path in terms of really being able to help people be their best selves. And so the background that I typically give is I'm a son of Haitian immigrants, so that automatically means that I was destined to be a medical doctor, right? [laughs] So for a long time I thought I was gonna be a psychiatrist, right, 'cause that fills both the medical doctor side and then my desire to work on behavior. Thankfully enough my sister became a pediatrician, my oldest sister, so I think she gave me some room to navigate and negotiate the reality that "Hm, maybe I'm not actually gonna go down that path of medicine but continue to pursue my dream of going into psychology." And so through college I was pre-med. I thought I was going down that path. I [?] all the things to really shape the direction of going into medical school, but then I began to know and understand when I took an internship after my junior year at Columbia University and I had the good fortune to work with a black male psychologist, who at the time to me was, like, a unicorn. So I had never actually met a psychologist in person, let alone a black male psychologist, and began to really know and understand that 1. it's possible to go down that route, 2. that I would have mentorship to really be able to know and understand how to navigate that path and negotiate it. So I had to have that hard conversation one day with my parents that I was not going to pursue medicine, but I was still gonna be a doctor, and it was just going to be a psychologist. So ultimately that's the path I took. I pursued, you know, my counseling psychology degree and really along the way understood that that was the best fit for me.Zach: Can we talk a little bit about--so you talked about it, you know, that seeing yourself represented is what then gave you the gumption to then pursue it yourself, but can we talk a little bit more about black representation in mental health and, recognizing that you are a child of immigrants, Haitian immigrants, but I'm curious about what have you seen in your presence as a black man make with your black and brown patients and students in perspective or hopeful psychologists and psychiatrists?Dr. Orbé-Austin: One of the particular missions that I've always had is to really increase the representation of black mental health practitioners, I'll say, in general in the field. So when we look at the numbers right now they're abysmal. Less than 4% of psychologists are black, and I'd say less than 2% of psychologists are black males. And it's typically across the board you see those similar numbers in psychiatry and social work, so the people that tend to engage clinically with our folks are not the people that look like them, right? And so over 86% for instance of psychologists in the U.S. are white. So what I was able to know and recognize as I said before 1. is to be able to see individuals who look like me pursuing the same profession as I wanted to pursue was very inspirational to me, but they also were able to provide me guidance and a home to talk about some of the challenges of being the only one in a lot of these spaces. So when I started my doctorate program I was the only black male there. I often times was primarily the only male in a lot of these rooms, and so, you know, the running joke in my program is that they would have one black male, like, every four, five years, and so I would meet--you know, I met the person who came on before me who was the black male for that time, and subsequently I knew I needed to join organizations and connect with professionals in the field, so I was able to be exposed to the Association of Black Psychologists very early on in my career, so I felt like I had an opportunity to engage with other folks doing this work. And then I saw it full center when I was able to do some of my training. One of the stories that I always talk about when we talk about things coming full circle as a child of Haitian immigrants, I had an opportunity to do an internship at King's County Hospital out in Brooklyn, New York, and I had the opportunity to actually work with this Haitian psychiatrist who had created a special clinic for Haitian patients, Haitian-American patients, and one of the things that he did as a psychiatrist primarily was to provide medication, but he recognized that a lot of these folks needed some more support, and so he was able to collaborate with me to start, like, a psychology clinic where I would do therapy with some of these folks, and the fact that I could speak their language, the fact that I knew their culture, the fact that, again, I looked like them, I think was so helpful in 1. helping them to not be afraid of the journey that they were taking through the mental health landscape, and then 2. it really enabled them to feel like they were being heard, understood, respected, and seen in ways that they probably may have never felt that they had been seen before, especially as many of them had recently immigrated to the U.S. and were trying to find their way.Zach: And so, you know, it's interesting to your earliest point around, like, the representation in the space being abysmal, like, it's challenging too, like, as someone who has, at various points in their life, like, pursued psychiatry or therapy or, like, just talking to somebody, right, it's not only, like, finding somebody, but, like, that small pool then limits some of the flexibility that I've heard my white counterparts have where it's like, "Okay, I have this psychiatrist, but we don't really click, so I'm gonna go and try to find somebody else, right?" Like, they'll shop around. Like, for me, you know, it's kind of like, "Well, dang. I mean, he and I don't really vibe on this level," or "She and I don't really agree about this," or whatever the case may be, but "She looks at me, and she at least empathizes with the bulk reality of my experience. So don't let me be picky. I'm just gonna stay here."Dr. Orbé-Austin: Yeah, and it becomes a challenge, especially when folks reach out to me and say that they're looking for some level of support and they say, "Hey, I want an African-American therapist." And typically, you know, I do say to shop around to find a fit, right? And so I want to give them as many options as possible. I end up being able to give, hopefully on the better end, three to four options, and then if they go to the first one and they feel like, "Okay, there's not a connection there," they may or may not actually then move forward on it, right? So I know that by the time someone gets to a point of really wanting to go to therapy, it's a major step for them to make that call, right? And so I always want to honor that and honor that, you know, effort to really make sure that they link with someone as soon as possible, and someone that they can vibe with, right? 'Cause yes, someone can look like you, but if you don't feel comfortable enough to be open and vulnerable to them, then it's just not gonna work, right? So that's the thing that I talk about, 'cause, you know, we can all feel like, "Hey, you know, they look like us," but if we don't connect, whether it's a co-worker or, you know, other person, we're like, "Yeah, they're black, but, you know, I'm not really feeling 'em in that way."Zach: All skinfolk ain't kinfolk.Dr. Orbé-Austin: Right? So it is a dilemma in helping people to feel like they have options and, you know, it's all right to kind of go to one or two to get the best fit.Zach: So you're a black man. You are in a highly--like, a very white academic space, and I'm really curious about what--like, what do micro-aggressions and just straight on aggressions look like for you, right? And I'm looking at your profile picture. I would imagine, you know, you're not catfishing anybody. You probably look a lot like your profile picture. So you look--like, you present... you don't present, like, a child, but you don't, like, present a very old man. Like, you present moderately young, right? And so I'm really curious as to, like, what does it look like just being you in these spaces, and, like, what do micro-aggressions look like, what do actual aggressions look like, how do you navigate that? What are some maybe patterns of behavior that you see operating as who you are in these spaces?Dr. Orbé-Austin: Sure. So I'm glad that you raised my picture, right, and how young I look. I appreciate the compliment. [both laugh] But that was one of the big ones, right, when I started out in either doing clinical work or in teaching - for a while I used to teach at the collegiate level, and I would get always, "Well, you look really young to be a professor," or "You look really young to be a therapist," right? And sure, on one hand it could be about age, but I think after a while if you still keep getting that same thing--and my white colleagues who were just as young as me were not getting that--then it made me begin to think about, "Well, what does that necessarily mean in terms of credibility, being authentic? How do I then recognize how to be seen for who I am?" So that was one, and then the other piece of it, you know, often times that would come up is the typical "Wow, you're very articulate," right? Whether it's, you know, giving a speech to a group of faculty members, whether it's, you know, being able to do a case presentation at a [?] conference. So often times there would be these underlying micro-aggressions that were really racially and, you know, gender-based. So if, for instance, you know, sometimes people would say, "Oh, you know, don't dress in a particular manner because, you know, it might be intimidating to the students. Just dress down," right? So for me it's like--you know, I wear a suit to work, right? That's my style. But to be told--I'll never forget this--to be told by a supervisor, "Well, you know, like, you may not want to do that. It might just be intimidating," and again, in that moment I didn't necessarily feel like, "Oh, okay. Well, this is clearly a micro-aggression," and that's the nature of micro-aggressions, right? That in the moment it kind of catches you a little off-guard. It's not so direct, but then when you sit and think about it for a little bit, then you recognize that, "Okay, my white male colleague wears a suit and a tie every day and is a little older than me, and I'm not imagining, you know, he was told the same thing," right? So it's managing and navigating that path. And then on the other path, you know, some of the work that I do as a consultant going into these different spaces, corporate spaces or, you know, academic institutions and people being surprised, right, they may not necessarily see my picture. They may have a conversation with me, but then when I show up in the room, you know, you get that sense of "Oh." You know, my name sounds a little bit generic, you know, especially when it was Richard Austin, right? So sometimes they're not expecting me to show up as the person that I am, and so they do a little double-take, right, and then they catch themselves, right? And so I get that, right? But now I've always said, to be quite honest, that my PhD has provided me access to many spaces that I otherwise wouldn't have had because of who I am, right? That those three little letters enable me to step into rooms that otherwise I'd be shut out of, and when I'm in those rooms I can then [?] my power, even though there is some level of pushback against it.Zach: And so, you know, it's interesting, 'cause I've spoken with folks--we have some mutual connections, and some of them also have, like, some really prestigious degrees, and so the conversation that I'll have with some of those folks is something like, you know, "My education and my profile can, like, preemptively trigger fragility and insecurity with my peers because they see the additional letters after my name," but I'm curious, like, have you ever experienced that yourself, or do you think that that's a bit more masked because of the fact that you're in, like, more formal academic spaces?Dr. Orbé-Austin: Well, not always am I in these spaces, right? So for instance, one of the types of consulting I do is diversity, equity and inclusion work, and in those spaces, particularly when I'm in corporate rooms where, yes, they can get that, you know, I have those three letters, but there is pushback, you know, against some of the things that I may have to offer, I think, because of, you know, who I am and what I may represent, right? And so we, you know, go into some of these spaces knowing that people might talk about wanting to do the work, but when it's time to do the work and when the work that's being guided by a black male is not what you want, then there can be a particular level of backlash or, you know, aggressive pushback that needs to be navigated and negotiated. Zach: And so then, you know, I think that leads us well into--you know what? No, I'ma pause on this actually, because, like, we have not formally talked about this on the podcast, but I think it leads well into, like, the main topic that we're gonna get into today, which is impostor syndrome. Can we talk a little bit about, like, gaslighting, and, like, what that is? And then perhaps how gaslighting can tie into impostor syndrome or exacerbating impostor syndrome.Dr. Orbé-Austin: Mm-hmm, yeah. I mean, I think that that's a great segue, because when we talk about gaslighting, in essence it's trying to convince you that what you're experiencing, seeing, listening to, is not your experience, right? That if someone makes a clearly racist, sexist, homophobic comment, clearly has done something offensive and they say to you, "Well, you know, you're reading too much into that," right? Or, you know, "I don't really understand how you came to that conclusion," right? And in the workspace, again, it's very difficult, especially one if there's a power disparity, right? Like, if the person doing the gaslighting is a supervisor or a senior peer, it's difficult to feel confident and comfortable enough to push back. And then two it's ultimately hard to then feel like you can win, right? Because if someone is in their particular stance, it's very difficult to argue with unless you have, you know, video recordings and you play it back and you're like, "Yeah," because they can say, "Well, I don't remember saying that," or "No, that's not what I said," right, and then you're left to kind of say, "No, this is my experience. This is what I heard," and if you don't have the "data," so to speak, they may just dismiss it, right? Say that you're just being sensitive or you're playing the race card or you're doing this, and then you're left totally powerless to really be able to make your argument stick.Zach: Or situations where they say, "Well, you know," to the point around race cards, like, "Maybe it's the fact that you're just not good enough, and so now you're leaning back on this as an excuse." Dr. Orbé-Austin: Mm-hmm, yeah.Zach: Well, let's talk about this. Let's talk about the concept of impostor syndrome. Like, in Season 1, it was, like, one of our first episodes actually, we were talking about impostor syndrome, but we really didn't get into, like, the science of it. We more so talked about, like, believing in yourself and, you know, knowing who you are and not trying to be fake, right, being authentic, but we didn't get into the neuroscience and, like, the genuine psychology of impostor syndrome and how it relates specifically to black and brown people. Can we talk a little bit just about what impostor syndrome is as a concept and how you would define it medically?Dr. Orbé-Austin: Sure. So first off I will say that impostor syndrome is not a diagnosable disorder, right? So it was first coined by two psychologists, Pauline Clance and Suzanne Imes, in actually 1978, and at the time they were studying very successful female students and faculty members at an academic institution, and what they noticed was that these women, who seemingly were high achievers, did not feel as such, right? They felt that they were frauds. They felt that they were going to be exposed as not smart enough, not good enough. They, again, thought that they were impostors, so they coined that term to really speak about this phenomenon when people have difficulty internalizing their accomplishments, their skills and their experiences. They're constantly in fear of being exposed as a fraud, and as a result of that they tend to overwork to compensate for their perceived lack of ability. So when we talk about impostor syndrome, it's really that experience that someone may have that isn't necessarily a medical or mental health, you know, disorder, but it tends to be something that impacts people who, again, 70% of the population have talked about experiencing impostor feelings, and so it often though impacts people who are high achievers, because that level of success they do not attribute to their own smarts or intelligence. They attribute it to luck. They attribute it to, you know, key relationships, and so they're constantly haunted by this feeling of being a fraud.Zach: And so then, you know, what are some practical ways that impostor syndrome shows up at work?Dr. Orbé-Austin: So when we talk about impostor syndrome in general, we can talk about the fact that a lot of what we call impostor-triggering workplaces exist nowadays where in people are always feeling like they need to prove themselves over and over again, that they're never good enough, and when we talk about black and brown folks especially, they have a double burden to bear. So on the external end they're actually dealing with lies and discrimination and people and systems that are telling them that they're not good enough, that they don't belong, that somehow or another they did not earn their spot, and then they're dealing with their own internal voices that also tell them that and make them feel like, "All right, well, maybe I shouldn't be here. Maybe they are right. Maybe I was lucky. Maybe they made a mistake," and it leaves you then feeling like you don't necessarily deserve more. So at work it means you might not ask for a raise. You might not take on a key project because you fear that you'll finally be exposed if you take up that key project, which could actually give you more visibility and access, but you're concerned that it will be a house of cards and you'll finally be found out. It makes you feel often times stuck in trying to really look for a better position, either within or outside the organization, because again of this notion of "Well, I'm just lucky to be here. I shouldn't ask for too much." And it comes up when your boss or peers will say to you, "Oh, well, you made a mistake on that one thing," or "Oh, that didn't go that well," or you beat yourself up as well, because one of the key elements that goes hand in hand with impostor syndrome is perfectionism, right? Because if you feel that the only way you deserve to be anywhere is to be perfect and to overwork to strive for that perfection, then you can work yourself to the levels of burnout, and if you make any simple mistake you will beat yourself up over it and not allow yourself to really grow, learn from it and move forward.Zach: And so then what are ways that you think that organizations--'cause you talked about organizations that exacerbate impostor syndrome, right? What do you think are some ways that organizations exacerbate impostor syndrome for everybody, and then what are ways that you believe that organizations exacerbate impostor syndrome particularly for black and brown folks?Dr. Orbé-Austin: Sure. So I talk about some of the triggers in today's work culture. One of them is this notion of performance, right? When I talk to [?] organizations and ask them what their performance is and some of them will give me blank looks or they'll report back that "Oh, you know, it changes, and, you know, it's constantly shifting." If people don't have an understanding of what good performance is, right, like, what they're striving to do, then they'll feel like they're not hitting their targets and they feel, again, that they have to keep proving themselves. And so on the organization's end they may feel like "Well, that's great 'cause it's gonna drive productivity," right? But ultimately it may drive people out of the organization. It may drive people to burnout, as seen through absenteeism, as seen through, you know, different ways of not necessarily being at the level of production that people want. So the first thing I tell organizations to do is to really make sure that you have a legitimate performance process, typically not just once a year, because again, if someone doesn't know either that she's doing well or that there's room for improvement, she's just gonna keep working working working until burnout, right? So that's the first way that organizations can really address and reduce impostor syndrome. The other thing is the manager is one of the key people to deliver the message for the organization. So, you know, management needs to be trained to know and understand how to provide appropriate feedback. So you have some managers who feel like "Well, I don't give praise at all. I don't give positive feedback because people don't really deserve it. They'd have to do something great, and no one really does anything great. You know, by me giving negative feedback, it helps them to keep moving forward and get better," and that has not proven to be the case. Research does not support that notion, that the more negative feedback that you give without any positive feedback the better people will perform. So it's helping people to really understand what constructive feedback is. Again, often times people who rise to the level of manager were great individual contributors, so they don't know and haven't mastered the skill sets needed to be a good manager. To be a good manager is to really develop people, to help people grow and learn, and if you don't have that lens you will continue to make some of the same mistakes that drive impostor syndrome and sustain it, especially when we talk about black and brown folk. It's helping them to feel that they actually belong, that they're not given the projects that nobody else wants, that if they're on the team they're given some the lower level types of projects, that you actually help them to know and understand that "You deserve to be here, we respect and value your skill sets, your expertise and your experience, and we're invested in keeping you and helping you to grow," right? So often times, you know, these notions of belonging and psychological safety that I talk about tend to be overlooked by organizations because, again, for them it's just about their bottom line. They want to make sure that people are producing at the levels that they need them to, but they don't necessarily think about the cost to those individuals, and so they end up marginalizing certain people, and when those people leave, then it's this self-fulfilling prophecy of "Oh. Well, yeah, they didn't belong here anyway," and they don't really learn and understand that, well, maybe it was the organization that didn't create a welcoming enough space for them to actually excel.Zach: You know, and it's interesting when you talk about, like, performance and, like, being really clear with, like, you know, what does good look like, I think it's challenging as work continues to become less transactional, and, like, high-paying jobs become more quote-unquote "strategic" and "qualitative" and "subjective." I think, like, with that comes a danger, or at least more opportunity, to have ambiguity in terms of what good performance looks like, and it gives managers space, unconsciously, consciously, maliciously or otherwise, to create hierarchies in their mind, like, outside of whatever system you want to use to grade something. Because if work is super subjective--like, one thing about consulting, right, like, so much of consulting has to do with relationships and, like, the work itself, because you're not making X amount of widgets a day. You're putting together a PowerPoint or you're writing a paragraph, and so much of those things are again, like, just inherently subjective. Like, PowerPoint design, I mean--and I know there's plenty of folks who hate PowerPoint, but, you know, there's some PowerPoints that look great to some folks and look terrible to others. There's some people who love the way that you run a meeting and there's people who think it's the worst thing in the world, right? So it's like--I guess my question to you, as we continue to think about the future of work and we think about the more [soft?] skills are gonna be needed to do the type of work that's gonna be left when you think about what automation is gonna pick up and kind of, like, what we're going to pick up after automation digs through the rubble of work. What are ways do you think that we can still create some norms, some performance standard or expectation norms, that don't exacerbate or create, like, impostor organizations?Dr. Orbé-Austin: I think that's a great question. One of the things that immediately comes to mind is 1. being able to acknowledge just the level of inherent bias in the process as a whole, right, that we as humans, and we as machines, tend to have bias, right? So a lot of organizations are really all about technology and AI, and AI ultimately will reduce bias and discrimination, and then when we look at, you know, some of these apps that, you know, when you take a picture they can't recognize black faces or they recognize them as monkeys. We know that people make these particular programs and artificial intelligences, so being able to constantly understand, be on the lookout, for the level of bias that exists in performance reviews. So one of the things that my wife and I talk about, we do some work around gender bias, and one of the presentations we talk about is that women tend to get more vague feedback, feedback that does not allow them to, again, think about ways to improve. So, you know, you said this term "strategic" before, and that's something I will say to you that comes up a lot, that women will be like, "Well, you need to be more strategic," and I always say to my female clients, "Ask them what that means," right? What does that look like, right? Men tend to get much more tangible, concrete feedback about how to improve, so it enables them to clearly know and understand what they're striving for, right? And, you know, I think it's some of the same type of challenges with professionals of color where if they get any feedback it may not necessarily be substantial or substantive enough to help them understand how to grow. It may just be punitive. You know, I was reading this article the other day about a hiring process where different black candidates were coming in to the process, and one of the, you know, committee members kept asking and talking about, you know, dress and timeliness to the black candidates, but to the white candidates that never came up. And thankfully there was someone else on the committee who noticed that and said, "You know, I have a question for you. Like, why is it that you're asking questions about timeliness and dress to, you know, certain candidates and not others, and why is it that the candidates that you're asking it about are the black candidates?" And the woman, you know, was able to [?] enough say, "Well, you know, I used to supervise this black woman, and she used to come in late all the time, and, you know, I wasn't really happy about that, so I really wanted to kind of, you know, make sure that that was talked about," right? And so you see that she was able to even pinpoint it, right, that this was not even unconscious bias. It was a conscious bias of saying, "Hey, this is something that is not acceptable," and then we have the issues related to, like, hair discrimination now, which is a big thing that, you know, in 2020 we're still talking about how people wear their hair as a means of, you know, determining whether or not they belong is just unfathomable to me. So organizations have to be honest with the bias in their processes and in the leadership norms and culture and continue to attack it, that it's a life-long learning process, that it's not this "Okay, we're good now. We did some diversity, equity and inclusion work, and we got our certificate, so we're good to go for the next fifty years," right? It's really institutionalizing that process. It's really saying "How are we enabling all of the different people who come into our organization to feel that they belong, that they're psychologically safe, that there is room for them here?"Zach: So you said a phrase and I'm gonna follow up on that, but before I get there, you know, you talk about--and again, I'm excited because I have someone in the space, so I want to--and I've continued to say when it comes to diversity, equity and inclusion work, I wish that--if there was a way I could've still got the bag, Richard, if I could have still gotten the bag and gotten into psychology, but I just couldn't see myself, like, getting the bag, not getting into that whatever, but I really am intrigued by the why behind the things that people do, right? So when you talk about giving feedback to black and brown employees, to people of color, do you think there's any role that, like, self-preservation or fragility plays into not giving into the type of feedback that black and brown folks receive? Like, in the ambiguity of the feedback as well as, like, the subjectivity of the feedback, and maybe even, like, the lack of substance in the feedback itself. Like, do you think that fragility or self-preservation plays into that?Dr. Orbe-Austin: Yes, definitely, because giving feedback is a very difficult, uncomfortable thing to do, and you can be called out when you're giving the feedback as to the things you're lacking and doing, right? So if you are a manager who doesn't feel secure in managing, right, 1. you tend to not give any kind of feedback until you have to in that year-end review, that one-time process, and there's some level of fear and anxiety, especially if you find black and brown folks more threatening, that if you give them feedback that may be upsetting that it may either come back to you in the form of them saying, "Hey, well, I also want to be able to give you some constructive feedback," and 2. if you believe that "Oh, well, they're just gonna be angry," then you will refrain from doing anything until, you know, again, you have to, and then ultimately if you don't feel that they actually belong in the organization consciously or unconsciously, it is a way for you to facilitate an exit, right? So I had another opportunity with an organization to talk about some of their challenges within their retention process, and one of the things that they raised was the reality that when they looked at the individuals who were on tips, they were consistently black employees, and the HR person, you know, thankfully said to the managers, well, "Why is that? I noticed this, and what does this mean?" Right? And it's the same way I used to talk about in schools that black males and suspended and expelled at higher rates than their white counterparts even though they may have the same levels and types of infractions, right, that some of the danger, you know, due to the fragility is "Okay, black and brown bodies are threatening to me, so therefore I have to find ways to protect myself and to punish them, either in the professional space or the academic space." So there was a case the other day where a young black male had the police called on him in his collegiate classroom because he refused to move his seat, and his white male professor decided that the way he was going to negotiate it was through punishment and to call the police to remove the young man rather than 1. recognizing that, you know, the reason he didn't want to move his seat is he had already come in, he had sat down, but the professor was trying to tell him he needed to come to the front, right? And again, like, would he have done that with a white student? Probably not.Zach: Well, you know, it's interesting too. I think that also speaks to, like, just the bizarre ways that, like, punishment for black and brown bodies, like, escalates so fast. It's like, "Wait, I went from not talking to anybody, there not being any issue, to now I'm talking to, like, someone with a huge difference in power than I have. Where did this come from? Like, how did we get here so fast?"Dr. Orbe-Austin: Yeah, it escalates. And I will say to you, you know, we talk about this issue of micro-aggressions and straight up aggressions. I remember one of the first jobs that I had, you know, while I was in graduate school was working in this college office, and again, only black male, primarily white women working in the space. It was a job to actually help, you know, primarily black and Latino students who had gotten kicked out of a four-year college--this was a community college--helping them to get back academically to a space to be able to return. So it was an advising position. I was focused on doing the work relative to helping these students. So I come in, go to my office, close my door, see my students and go, and that was not acceptable to my white female supervisor. So she decided that she needed to watch me or kind of know and understand what it was that I was doing, and chance would have it, you know, that this is where I actually met my wife, the other Dr. Orbe-Austin. She came on board, and when she came on board this woman said to her, "Well, can you watch him?" Like, you know, "'Cause you're another person of color. Can you watch him and see, like, what he's up to?" Now, mind you, this woman and her other colleagues, all her other direct reports, were white women, would go out to these long lunches, go to Lohman's, go shopping and do all these other things. I was in, you know, my office seeing these students, but I was the one who was suspect, and it got to a turning point where, you know, again I was able to connect with my wife [?], and she told me, "Yeah, I was sent to kind of surveil you," right? And it's unbelievable, right? At that stage of my life and my career that, you know, that level of micro-aggression is like, "Okay, he's doing his work, but I can't see him 'cause his door's closed." Well, my door's closed 'cause I'm talking to students and I'm dealing with them in that way, right? So that's some of the hidden ways, 'cause had my wife and I not connected and she then was like, "Oh, yeah. I'm gonna watch him and report back," then it would just be "Oh, he's lazy. He's not doing his job."Zach: Yeah. "I don't know what he's really doing. He says he's doing this, but I don't see that."Dr. Orbe-Austin: Right, and so when we talk about this issue of privilege, you know, I often talk about the fact that white privilege means that you're given the benefit of the doubt relative to competence, relative to innocence, and you just have a higher trust point, right, that people will tend to believe you and give you the benefit of the doubt even if you're not doing anything right. So that's the heavier burder that we carry, and it's not--you know, it's not playing the race card. It's not an excuse. It's the reality. It's what the data shows. It's what time and again the numbers show from a wide variety of vantage points.Zach: It's interesting, like, your point around being at work and you're a credentialed professional, right? You're doing your job, and yet there are these informal hierarchies, right, that are forming around you. You know, I've experienced that myself. Like, I've been in situations where, you know, I have people who are supposed to be junior to me or at peer level to me, but again, people are typically not as slick as they think they are, right? Like, the reality is black and brown people have to be extraordinarily vigilant in just paying attention, which we're gonna get into psychological safety in a minute, but it's just interesting because I've been in those situations more than a few times where I'll be, you know, on paper supposed to be this title, but then there's folks around and, like, I'm noticing they're kind of checking on me or they're asking a bunch of questions or they're--they feel empowered to try to coach me or tell me what I'm not doing or ask me what I'm doing or, you know, say, "Well, I talked to So-and-so, and we think you should be doing--" And it's like, "Well, who is we? You're not my boss." Okay, so again, what we're talking about and what I'm hearing, frankly I'm getting stressed just, like, re-thinking about those things and hearing you describe your experience. What are ways that leaders can create higher degrees of psychological safety so that employees, particularly black and brown ones, can work more effectively?Dr. Orbe-Austin: So one of the things I talk about, and this comes up a good deal when I do some DEI work, is psychological safety, at the end of the day, is telling someone or someone having the feeling that they can show up at work and be their true selves without fear of negative consequence, right, that they can really talk about their experiences, kind of share their beliefs and not be silenced, and a culture has to be developed in order for someone to feel that, right? And what that means on the leadership end is being able to really allow room for differing viewpoints one, not punishing people if they don't necessarily agree with what the leaders with, two really actually listening to people instead of just waiting to talk next after someone else is talking and being able to understand and have a certain level of empathy for someone else's experience. Being able to be vulnerable yourself as a leader and sharing some of the things that you may be experiencing to let people know that you're not just superhuman or perfect, that you do make mistakes. Take accountability when you do make mistakes as well to again demonstrate that it's all right for you to not have everything in order, but that, you know, it's really adopting a growth mindset of saying that, you know, we're here to do good work." At the same time, we still are striving to learn and grow in those ways, right? So creating these spaces to be able to have people have a voice is one of the easiest ways for honestly organizations to develop psychological safety, right? So it's having access to the leadership. When I meet with people and I talk about "Well, how often do you talk to even your manager?" And they're like, "Oh, you know, we meet maybe once every two or three months," and my mouth is like totally, like, open... like, yeah, that's not good, right? Like, you have to be able to build relationships with your manager. Your manager has to be able to know who you are, not just, again, as someone filling a space and making widgets, but what are your aspirations? What are your hopes and dreams? What are your plans for being in this organization? And because so much management training is lacking or is not as in-depth as it needs to be, a good deal of managers feel ill-equipped to have some of these conversations, and so they just have very much transactional types of engagements with their direct reports where in they're just wanting to know "Okay, did you do X project? Let's do a check-off," rather than really taking the role as coach/mentor/growth agent. Zach: What can individuals do to combat impostor syndrome, right? So we talked about it at the organizational level, but what can individuals do?Dr. Orbe-Austin: So we talk about in our book this model that we created called the 3 C's model, which stands for Clarify, Choose, Create, and it starts with really clarifying your impostor origin story. So we all have origin stories, and some of us are better at really being honest with it than others, but it's being able to know and recognize "Well, what may have triggered or started this impostor journey?" Often times it might be because you were labeled in your family early on as, you know, either the super smart one who makes no mistakes and so you just feel like you have to be perfect and if you make a mistake, then that means you're an impostor, or on the other hand you were labeled as the social one and another sibling or family member was labeled as the smart one, right, so then you didn't feel like, "Oh, there's room for me to be smart and social." So recognizing that the origin. Not to again blame anyone, but to know and understand where that comes from. And then the other part of Clarify is to know what your triggers are. So for a lot of people with impostor syndrome, new experiences are a trigger point. So a new job, new project, meeting new people, may help them begin to feel increasingly anxious about being found out, that "Oh, this is gonna be the job I fall apart. This is gonna be the project where I'm exposed as a fraud. This person is gonna see right through me." So knowing and understanding that and then really being able to get support for that. So the last part of clarify is to change your narrative, right? Like, we all have a particular story that we tell ourselves, and people with impostor syndrome typically have a very negative narrative about who they are and what they've accomplished and how they've accomplished it. So being able to honestly look at and own your accomplishments, really being able to say, "I really earned that because of my effort and some of the actual skill that I have." And then we go to Choose, where it's speaking your truth. So the reason often times impostor syndrome tends to be sustained is because people suffer in silence, right? Like, they feel that they're ashamed to even raise it, right? Like, if you're a senior VP, you know, everyone around you looks like--you know, all of your family members feel like "Oh, you made it," then you might be afraid to say, "Well, I'm actually not happy, and I actually feel like I'm an impostor." So there's this fear that people will ridicule you for doing that. So being able to say it out loud can be freeing to begin the process of healing that. And a part of healing it is changing not only the narrative but some of these automatic negative thoughts you may have about what people think about you, how you label yourself and how you unfairly compare yourself to others. So being able to create what we call a positive [?] instead of these immediate when something goes wrong the automatic negative thought is "Oh, I'm a failure," or "Here we go again, I'm an impostor." And then in the midst of all this it's really taking care of yourself, really being able to make self-care a key priority for yourself in choosing, and then finally, you know, the last piece of the puzzle is trying on and creating. When we talk about Create, it's experimenting with new roles. So a lot of people with impostor syndrome tend to be the helpers, the go-to person in their friend/family network, so they don't have the room to ask for support or assistance or feel ashamed to do it, to actually taking on the role of asking for help and feeling like it doesn't expose you to being weak or not being able to do things, making sure you build your dream team of support, getting a coach, getting a mentor, you know, getting people who will support you in your impostor syndrome-defeating journey, and then finally understanding that impostor syndrome can be triggered at any point in your life. So when we talk about defeating impostor syndrome, we don't talk about it as an end-all and be-all cure. We talk about it as decreasing the frequency and intensity of those feelings and that when they do occur again understanding and identifying the conditions for your optimal performance, right, which is the self-care, which is the dream team, which is changing your narrative.Zach: Man, Dr. Orbe-Austin, this is incredible. I want to make sure I give you space to plug your book, to talk about where people can learn more about you, where they can find you, all of that.Dr. Orbe-Austin: Sure. So again, I appreciate this opportunity. It's been a pleasure to chat with you. If people want to know more about the work that I do, they can go to my website, DynamicTransitionsLLP.com. So my wife and I, our consultancy is called Dynamic Transitions Psychological Consulting, LLP, so you can go online, and it will have information about the work that we do. It will have information about the book, which will come out in April. So we're really excited about that. Again, the name of the book is Own Your Greatness: Overcome Impostor Syndrome, Beat Self-Doubt, and Succeed in Life, and, you know, one of the things we felt was important when we wrote the book was to have it be something dynamic and alive, so a part of it talks about, you know, the experience of impostor syndrome, but it also then has activities for you to do to really help in overcoming impostor syndrome. So it's not necessarily solely just an academic guide to things. It's actually some practical tips and applied types of activities that will enable you to move forward in living your best life.Zach: I love it, I love it. Man, it's just been great. I'm just so excited, because I do believe--and my goal, our collective goal at Living Corporate, is to get more psychologists and psychiatrists on our platform, because when it comes to really making sure that we are centering and amplifying black and brown voices and, like, effectively empathizing with them, I think it's important to have people on who have some of the academic background and knowledge and, like, formal understanding, not only for our own sake because a lot of us can't afford or for a variety of reasons, you know, don't have those resources, but maybe this will encourage us to go seek help that we desperately need just as an output of being a part of an oppressive capitalistic patriarchal system. But I also think it's important that we have folks like you on for the folks who are not black and brown who listen to our platform, because so often times education is used as a barrier to not listen to black people, black and brown people, or hear our stories. This, like, Euro-centric, like, demand for quantitative data and research that in itself is inherently biased, but whatever. So I'm just thankful that you're here, that's what I'm trying to say, okay? I appreciate you.Dr. Orbe-Austin: Well, I appreciate you creating this platform, because when I heard about it I was so excited to kind of engage with you, because as I've talked about many times, a lot of our folks, particularly in these corporate spaces, are suffering in silence and may feel like they're the only ones having some of these struggles, and I think you present a space for them to not feel that they need to go through it alone, and you provide a certain level of hope and strategies for them to really be able to free themselves from some of the things that may be more corrosive to their quality of life and really being able to help them believe they can live their best lives.Zach: Man, I mean... [applause sfx] You know, that's claps for both of us, you know what I mean? We're both celebrating right now. All right, y'all, look. This has been Living Corporate, okay? Really glad that y'all were able to stop by. You heard Dr. Orbe-Austin and all of the information. Make sure you check it out in the show notes. Make sure you check us out at living-corporate--please say the dash--dot com. If you want to check us on the social media, we all over the place. Just Google Living Corporate and we'll pop up. Until next time, y'all. Peace.

Zach has the honor of speaking with Great Place to Work CEO Michael C. Bush about GPTW itself and the process of creating a great place to work. Michael generously shares what he believes executives should be thinking about when it comes to building better trust within organizations and talks about where he sees Great Place to Work continuing to grow and expand to capture more marginalized voices and experiences.Connect with Michael on LinkedIn and Twitter.Check out Great Place to Work's website. You can review their most recent lists by clicking here.Follow GPTW on social media. They're on LinkedIn, Twitter, Instagram and Facebook.Interested in Michael's book? Find out more about it on Amazon.Find out how the CDC suggests you wash your hands by clicking here.Help food banks respond to COVID-19. Learn more at FeedingAmerica.org.Visit our website.TRANSCRIPTZach: What's up, y'all? It's Zach with Living Corporate, and man, you know what we do. We center and amplify underrepresented voices in the workplace by having authentic, available, and frankly incredible conversations with some incredible guests, and, you know, today is no different, right? Like, we've had who, we've had Robin DiAngelo on, we've had Ruchika Tulshyan, we've had--we've had professors, we've had executives, we've had activists--we've had DeRay Mckesson--we've had all types of folks on the podcast, on the platform, and today is just incredible because we have Michael C. Bush. Michael C. Bush is the CEO of Great Place to Work, the global research and analytics firm that produces the annual Fortune 100 Best Companies to Work For lists. So you know when y'all, you know, see companies and they have, like, the little badge and it'll say, "Oh, we're, like, #5 great place to work," this person we're speaking to is the CEO of Great Place to Work, y'all. This is a big deal. I'm not trying to overhype it. I don't think I can overhype it. I'm just trying to give proper context to who we have on the show. You know, the 100 Best Workplaces for Women list, the Best Workplaces for Diversity list, and dozens of other distinguished workplace rankings around the world. Since 2015, Michael Bush has expanded Great Place to Work’s global mission to build a better world by helping organizations create Great Places to Work not just for the some, but For All. Under his leadership, the firm has developed a higher standard of excellence that accounts for fair and equitable treatment of employees across demographic groups, as well as executive leader effectiveness, innovation, and financial sustainability. His book, A Great Place to Work For All, outlines the compelling business and social benefits that come from these efforts. Michael, first of all, how are you doing?Michael: I'm doing great. Thank you, and honored to be with you today.Zach: It's a pleasure. Now, I'm asking--you know, we're in the midst of a global pandemic, and I would be remiss if I didn't ask how are you doing with your family. Is everyone safe and well? Friends and family, loved ones?Michael: Thanks for asking. Yeah, the world has really changed in the past 45 days, but I'm doing well. I'm sheltering in place here in Oakland, California, with family nearby, so everything's good, and I hope the same for you.Zach: You know, everything is good. It's interesting. It's an interesting time. My wife and I just welcomed our first child into the world just a handful of weeks ago, and it's just an interesting time to be new parents, right, with so much chaos, you know, seemingly all around us, or uncertainty around us, but life is beautiful nonetheless.Michael: Well, congratulations to you and your wife, and yeah, you couldn't have brought, you know, a baby into the world at a crazier time, you know, but things are always a little bit crazy, and what a story you're gonna be able to share with your baby, you know, and we're just gonna do what we're always gonna do, which is make the world a lot better from here.Zach: I love it, absolutely. So let's get into it, right? We talked about it a little bit in the bio that I read. You've been the CEO of Great Place to Work for over 5 years, going on 5 years. Can we talk about your first 100 days as the CEO and, like, what did that look like, you just kind of stepping into that role. And then, you know, in these past five years--I guess Part B to the question is what have you been most proud of since taking the helm?Michael: Yeah. Well, when I stepped into the role in 2015, I got into the role in a strange way. I was actually hired by the founder of Great Place to Work to sell the company, and I had done a lot of turnaround work in the past, and so I came in and worked to do that, and to make a long story short I ended up getting an investment partner and buying the business. So that's how I got into it, and then one of the things that I knew is that I felt like having the analytics of what really was going on for working people all around the world and knowing that there are a lot of working people who never really get a fair shot at being developed, never get a fair shot at being promoted, never get a fair shot at being recognized and rewarded, that I could use--I hoped--the data and the analytics to use recognition to get organizations to change, and so that's really when we made the change, almost instantly, to Great Place to Work for All. I thought that we'd have a platform, and at that time, you know, you never know how things are gonna work out. The business was technically bankrupt, so the first 100 days were what you have to do when you're turning around a company that's bankrupt, which is you have to stop all the money flowing out of the company. So a lot of tough decisions, a lot of tough days where you're just pruning the rose bush so that you can grow, and those times are very difficult, but that's really what the first 100 days were about. Not too much about the future. A lot of pain in trying to cut costs, but we got through it.Zach: When you talk about, like, Great Place to Work for All, like, clearly that's a point of pride for you and, like, kind of continuing to shift and expand the platform or the position that you stepped into. Can we talk a little bit about what it was about that particular--like, why you took that angle, and, like, why was that your point of determined growth for Great Place to Work?Michael: Yeah. Zach, I think the thing that helped me was having a lot of business experience and having been a CEO before as well as working with CEOs. One of the things I knew is that most CEOs, while they talk articulately and clearly and passionately about diversity and inclusion, it's not something they think about that much, you know? They think about it during Black History Month, you know, or other things like that, but beyond that they really don't think about it that much, so it's kind of a head fake because you can hear these things that are very optimistic and passionate, but in fact they just don't think about them that much, and so--they're CEOs, which means they're thinking about other things like shareholder value, stakeholder value, but this one isn't one of 'em. They delegate it, and so they typically delegate it to a chief of diversity and inclusion or maybe a chief of people or a CHRO, but it's delegated, you know? It's not something that they lose a lot of time thinking about, and so I knew that and knew a lot of people, you know, doing diversity and inclusion work, and the common experience was "If you get to a CEO and you say, "Hey, I'd like to talk to you about diversity and inclusion," and they go, "Oh, talk to my chief of diversity and inclusion and I'll see you later." And so they're gone. So I was trying to find a way of keeping them in the conversation by not bringing up diversity and inclusion, and we did that. So when you talk about Great Place to Work for All, they don't leave the room because they're like, "Hey, I'm into that because, you know, that includes me," and also Great Place to Work for All has superior financial business performance. We've got all the data on that, so now they hang in the room, and now they're there and they're present, and now you have an opportunity to share data and information with them to get them into the conversation and hopefully leading the conversation. So it's really--for me it was a Trojan horse. It was how to get into the castle walls and not have somebody come out the castle walls, you know, that was delegated to talk about diversity and inclusion. I felt that the CEO needed to be in that conversation just like they're in the conversation when they're buying the company. They have a head of M&A, but they're in that conversation, so I thought that we could make that happen, and so far so good.Zach: Well, no, it's a great point, and something that you just said rung true with me. I think another example is, like, HSC, right? Like, you talk about health and safety environments, like, the CEO is going to be involved in that conversation by some degree because they recognize the business value and just, like, the imperative of safety for their workplace. Like, they may not be in every single part of the conversation, but they're going to be engaged. If there are other parts of the organization that executive leaders, that CEOs want to be plugged into, I think it's interesting. As much growth as diversity and inclusion has seen, I think that certain language and buzzwords kind of, like, trigger disengagement from the senior-most people. So I find that really interesting and powerful that you were able to figure out kind of, like, I don't want to say the cheat code, but, like, the way to kind of mitigate that a bit.Michael: Yeah, yeah. Cheat code. I hadn't thought about it like that, but that's kind of what it is, and whatever works, you know? Kind of by any means necessary, and so we found that this works, and it not only works in the U.S. When I first did for the for All and started moving it around the world, the first thing we got was resistance because, first of all you're coming from the U.S., and the racial issues are--in the U.S. they are on display for everyone to see and the rest of the world looks at it, but the rest of the world doesn't look at themselves, and so the very resistance was "Well, you're coming from the U.S. We don't have racial issues," which is crazy, because it doesn't matter which country you go to, there's racial issues. But they're not seen the same way. They don't--people don't really self-reflect in the same way. And then, you know, so I was bumping into that, and then what began to happen was people in Sweden started talking about, "Well, really, you know, women aren't treated family," and so for them for All meant that. And so wherever you were in the world - Japan, you know, women, and so there was always some group of people in every country that was treated differently in terms of opportunity and promotion and getting into the C-Suite for example than others. So then it just took off. Then it just took off and really, outside the U.S., it's been embraced more strongly than inside the U.S., 'cause in the U.S., you know, people do say, "Are you using a cheat code?" You know? They're kind of more suspicious, but around the world the thing has really just taken off, and, you know, the book is now in I think 11 different languages and so on just because of that, and CEOs now want to be linked a message that gets them a lot of brand value, and so Great Place to Work for All gets them a lot of brand value. If they talk too much about diversity and inclusion, you know, they actually get blowback from the dominant group in the workforce, and so this is a way that they can get out in front and be totally, totally inclusive without saying inclusive.Zach: It's interesting too that, like, you know, the amount of work that goes into that, right? How can we be inclusive while at the same time not oversignaling to the point where we actually lose the folks in the room who we need to be engaged to create, you know, systemic change and a sense of belonging for everybody? That really kind of leads me to my next question. You know, you're the first--yes, you're the first black male CEO of, like, a major organization or company that we've had on Living Corporate, right? So we've had, like, different senior leaders and executives and directors, but you're the first CEO that we've had. Can we talk a little bit about the role that your previous experience--'cause you talked about it before, about you were a CEO before this, you had industry experience before coming to Great Place to Work--and how your identity plays a role in some of the things that you do and the relationships that you have to make and maintain in your current position?Michael: Yeah. A lot of times people will ask, you know, "How do you get to a CEO?" And the answer is I started, you know, my own company in 1994, and so it really began by breaking out of corporate America. So it wasn't being within it, it was breaking outside of it. There are other journeys. I'm familiar with them. I have, you know, close friends who have done the corporate journey and been able to get to the CEO role. That's one path. It's a very different path than the one that I know the most about, which is the entrepreneurial path. And being an entrepreneur isn't for everybody, just like being a corporate CEO isn't for everybody. It takes two different personalities and two different skill sets really. But for me, on the entrepreneurial path, it was getting a feeling that I was never gonna really be comfortable in the corporate environment. I was never gonna be comfortable. I was always gonna be doing some shapeshifting in that environment, and so once I broke out, okay, then it was great, because I was able to break out and do the things that I needed to do to be successful, and the thing about, you know, so then how do you grow and how do you get to do more, what you gotta do is make rich people more money. So it's--the key is that, you know? It's you better be delivering that value. And so if you create value for people, you have friends for life, and so then you can start to be able to use that momentum. So all of the things that I've done, just like Great Place to Work, what I talk about is profitability. What I talk about is cash flow. So I talk to CEOs about the things that matter to them most. It's all about that. Now, this is the way you do it, but I always go through that door, and I've always gone through that door so people know it's about profitability, it's about EBITA, it's about cash flow, it's about growing market share, and this is the way you do it. You know, this is a way to do it, but it's a business helping another business do a lot more business. I have the data to prove if you make it a Great Place to Work for All you're gonna crush your competitors, you know? The companies that are on our list that are Great Places to Work for All outperform the S&P 500, the Russell 2000 and 3000 by a factor of 3:1, including today, you know, as the market drops. Our companies don't drop as much and they rebound quicker during recovery. So having the data and the analytics, always leading with those numbers, never going to the morally right thing to do but always being about the business enables the CEO to stay there so I can actually--the CEO doesn't leave the room because there aren't a lot of D&I people talking about EBITA, earnings and cash flow. They're talking about other things. So, you know, I'm not saying that there's anything wrong with that. I'm just saying--Zach: It's just the reality of the environment, right?Michael: It's just the reality of the environment, and if you're talking to a CEO about the things they care about, which are those financial metrics, you can begin to talk to them about a lot of things, because they know they're talking to somebody that everything I say is gonna be about enhancing those metrics.Zach: You know, that leads me--Michael, it's almost like you do this a lot, right? It's almost like you talk to folks and you do meetings, interviews, quite a bit, 'cause you're just--you're helping me out. Without getting too much into the secret sauce, like, we understand that Great Place to Work, like, y'all's list is not something that's, like, qualitative, but it's a variety of quantitative analytics, points of measurement. Can you talk a little bit about how the data analytics behind the Great Place to Work rankings has evolved over time and what influenced, if anything, the way that Great Place to Work determines if a company is indeed a Great Place to Work.Michael: Yeah. So we ask the same 60 questions of every company we do business with in 98 countries around the world, so that's one thing that makes us different. Other companies kind of tailor the question set. We're like, "No. We know people. We've got 30 years of data on people." People, you know, the norms might be different, the willingness of a worker to say what they think and what they want might be--they might be more willing and open to it in one country versus another due to social norms, but at the bottom people want the same thing, and so we measure those things. People want to be respected by the people that they work for, so we ask 11 questions that let us know whether you feel respected or not. People want to work for somebody who they feel is transparent with them, so we ask about 9 questions about that. And people want to be treated fairly more important than anything else, so we ask 14 questions about that. And then people want to enjoy the people that they work with and people want to be proud of their work, which means they feel cared for and they care for the people around them, that's what really drives high-performing work, people caring about one another. It's not stock options. Those things don't have the stamina of people. They have to feel like they're doing something they couldn't do on their own and be connected by some sense of purpose. So we measure those things. We ask these questions. We're an analytics company. It's all about the numbers, and we do this with 10 million employees and 10,000 companies every year, so across every single industry. There's not an industry that we don't survey in. So therefore we've got a huge data set to let people know when your people are feeling that in this part of the world things aren't fair, we tell you what that's gonna do to EBITA and profitability and earnings and revenue in that part of the world. We can go straight to the correlation between the employee experience and revenue and these financial metrics, and in some metrics we can go to some causation. We can actually tell you if people aren't feeling emotionally or psychologically or physically safe, those, what I just said, safety defined with those other three attributes drives earnings, you know? It drives earnings is how safe people feel, so we measure those things and therefore can let you know, "Hey, when we see this set of data, we know these people are updating their LinkedIn profiles. They may still be working for you, but they are looking for the next thing to do. So we call it presenteeism. They're present, but they are looking for a way out. So now the data can be used with artificial intelligence to predict what's gonna happen with people. You can see that a person pulls on their--the economy is going good and a person pulls on their 401K and then doesn't return in time not to pay a penalty on that. This person's undergoing some financial pressure, and the financial pressure they're going through affects through employee experience, so we can alert a company that "Hey, you've got a problem here because we can see in this data." So it's all about the data, it's all about the 60 questions, and we measure the employee experience, how they feel about the people they work with, whether they feel like management involves them in decisions that affect them, whether they trust management, whether they have confidence in management. So we ask a set of questions where we can let a leader know exactly what's going on and then compare that so we can--if you're a tech company and you get the data and you don't really know what to think, well, we have a benchmark against other tech companies, and then you go "Whoa, okay, these companies are actually outperforming me in these areas. I want to do something about it." So benchmarking is very important. You can see how Latin America is doing versus South America versus North America or men versus women or people of color versus majority or members of the LGBTQ community versus the majority. You can do all the demographic cuts. The biggest change we made in our methodology since I got involved were these demographic comparisons to see if it was a great place to work for all versus a great place to work for some. That's the revolutionary breakthrough that we've made, and so our lists today are different from the lists in the past because we reward companies that treat everyone the same, where employees are having the same experience and the same in an equitable way, which we're able to measure.Zach: You know, you talked a bit about--you mentioned, like, predictive analytics there, and I'm curious, how far away--and if we're already here, then let me know, but how far away are we from predicting, like, lawsuits or, like, legal action by employees who feel, like, psychologically, emotionally, physically unsafe, who feel, like, discriminated against and things of that nature and then, like, present that to organizations and say, "Hey, look, you have a serious problem, and here's the likelihood of X happening, and then here's the amount of damages that would cost to your brand over X amount of time." Do you think we're anywhere close to that? Do you think that's anything that would be relevant or pertinent for organizations to have?Michael: Well, for some companies they're able to do it right now, and you're talking about where we're heading, absolutely where we're heading. So if you've got an HR system of record on Oracle or a [?] or an SAP or Ultimate software, if you've got an HR system of record--which is a platform that has the payroll information on the employee, the use of benefits on the employee, something around the performance management of the employee, and you have an employee engagement tool that's doing the measuring, and those two are nested and the data can flow between them, you have what you need. And so there are other companies who have what they need and others are heading there now. This is the movement to be able to ask an employee a set of questions and predict what's going on with them and what you need to create a better experience for that employee, which is usually around development and opportunities and promotions and feedback. That's mainly what most people need. Sometimes tailored benefits around things that are going on in their life, like everybody's kind of living through right now. So this is happening at companies now. I'm very much aware of it. We're involved in it by nesting our tool on top of these other platforms, but I would say big companies, Fortune 500 companies, will be totally in this game in 5 years, you know, 100%, and then products will be developed for medium-sized companies and will be in the marketplace--you know, start to enter in about 3 years.Zach: I just find that so intriguing, right? Like, I think about the fact that there's already tools out there that are being mobilized within the next, like, half--within this decade, right? We're gonna start seeing--Micheal: Easily, yeah. At the end of the decade this will--we won't be talking about this.Zach: It won't even be a point of discussion. It's gonna be "Hey, look, no. Your data says this. There's an X percent chance of this happening, and we need to make some adjustments now."Michael: It's absolutely gonna happen, and so machines are already now--at Amazon machines are recommending people for promotion. Machines are recommending people for termination. Machines are doing that. So they're kind of on the cutting edge. Not saying that they're doing that in a great way, I'm just saying--Zach: The technology is out there and it's happening.Michael: It's out there. They're using machine learning tools to make those decisions. Others are going to move on that, and the key is how do you do those things in a way that employees can trust it? Which is a big difference between machine learning and artificial intelligence when there is no trust and a big difference between machine learning and artificial intelligence when there is trust, and if you think about the 60 questions we answer, what are we really, really measuring? It's trust. That's really what we're measuring. Now, we can define it in all its dimensions, but it's trust. Respect is a part of trust. Credibility, transparency is a part of trust. Fairness is a part of trust. So trust is really what we're measuring. We could just double-click all over it to get you additional information, but it's all about trust.Zach: You know, I think--and for me, I'm always curious about when it comes to these lists--and I say this as somebody, of course I love what y'all are doing. I love Great Place to Work. It's the definitive listing space, right? I think it's also interesting because as a black man who has a network of a ton of black and brown people, right, like, we'll look at some of these lists and like, "Dang, okay." I recognize that the overall maybe brand of a company may be really strong, and it's ranked or whatever, but then I wonder like, "Okay, how do I reconcile that with, like, stories that I'm hearing from marginalized people who have had, like, real challenges at these companies?" And I'm curious to know, like, where do you see Great Place to Work continuing to grow and expand to capture, like, marginalized voices and experiences?Michael: Yeah. So Zachary, that's where I was in 2015, exactly where you were, meaning looking at a company--at that time thinking about buying it, looking at the list of the places that were ranked as Great Places to Work, and I knew people of color having horrible experiences in those companies. That's why I bought it, because I'm like, "I think we can do something about this. We can reorder it." And if you look at, you know, 2014, 2013, the companies at the top of that list, they're not at the top now, okay? They're not at the top now, so that's really what happened, but I was exactly where you were and definitely driven to do that. So what it has enabled is, you know, I'm not satisfied by any means. I'm satisfied by the progress, but not by where we are. You know, the thing I talk about it, the bullseye all the time for me is 2030, that that's when we need to get this right, which means--you know, our analytics are driven by algorithms, and so you've got to continually modify the algorithms, and when you modify the algorithm, you've got to live with that algorithm and its output for a year, then you modify it and you've got to live with it for a year. So it's frustrating because it takes a long time, but, you know, we're at the place now where we can say to a company that "Hey, we've measured the experience of different demographic groups, people of color, and we can double-click on it and so on, and their experience is very different from these other groups, therefore you're falling down or off the list." We can do it on that basis now, which that wasn't happening in 2015. There was no way of doing it. We do it now. So we call it maximizing human potential. That's another cheat code, but what it is is we compare one demographic group to another. We reward companies where the gap is small and we penalize companies where the gap is huge. So you can no longer be "80% of our people are having a great time." We go into the people who have given a one or a two response on the Likert scale, you know, that are saying, "My manager involves me in the decisions that affect me? Never or almost never." Okay, well, we grab that group and compare it and put--we give weight to that, a group that it was never done. Another thing is--you know, in terms of there's other lists out there that are recognizing companies, none of them are surveying employees. So really those are marketing-driven exercises.Zach: Right. Those are smiley faces, right?Michael: They are. You know, they're just doing something very different, and so for us, we can let you know--like our diversity lists. You know, there's a few diversity lists, you know, kind of out in the world that are well-known. There's only one that measures and scores the experience of under-represented people. That's Great Place to Work. Our list is driven by their experience, so it doesn't matter, you know, frankly, what white males think about their work experience. We don't measure it for those lists. You know, we don't measure it for those lists. We look at underrepresented people. That's what drives that list. We look at their experience, because that's what it is. For the 100 Best we look at everybody, but we don't for that. So it took us a while, because if I had done that immediately I'd be out of business. So, you know, you've got to build some brand strength and get people to, you know, understand what you're doing and that you're a rational person who wants to grow their business. So it took some time, but we're almost there. I don't feel like we're there right now. We're almost there where we are just pulling in representation into our final ranking criterion. So I feel like we're just about there, and it's enabling us to have some great CEOs who loved being on our list, but now we're able to say, "Hey, guess what?" Even though, you know, we have some companies that, you know, 60, 70% of their workforce are people of color, and they're having a great experience, which is great, but then we look at the top team and we're like, "That doesn't look like them." But the good news is you can have that disconnect and a group of people having a great experience. So that's wonderful, but just think how much better they could be if they could look up and say, "Hey, if I keep working real hard, it's possible for me to get there." "I feel respected now, but I'd really feel respected if that's true." So we're able to talk to CEOs and say, "I know you're happy now." Nobody in hospitality is happy today, but [?] they were happy, 90 days ago they were happy, and you could say, "I know this is great, and I know you're providing a great experience for these people, all these people. That's incredible. We think, you know, the world of you, but you need to do something about this because you'll really unlock them," and the kind of CEOs we deal with, which are the ones who get how this drives their profitability and earnings--and most of these have some moral connection as well in the way that they want to be seen and the way that they want their families to see them. That's kind of another lens that affects a CEO's mindset. So then they go, "Okay, look, I got it," and they don't have to do it, but they choose to do it. So that's when I know, "Okay, this is working now," that this is enabling them to be who they want to be. And a lot of CEOs, I've done a lot of work on the following where you have a CEO moving through their career and just having a great career, a lot of power, a lot of influence, they're happy and satisfied, and then they have a daughter. It changes 'em forever, because then they're like, "I want my daughter to get paid equal pay," but at the company they're running, it's not happening. All of a sudden they start to look at equal pay differently because they had a daughter. I've seen this time and time again, a CEO with a daughter, a CEO with a kid with autism, a CEO with a kid with mental health issues. It modifies the behavior of that CEO and how they--which is great, but that shape-shifting move blows the door open for being a great place to work for all. Now it becomes their thing. They start saying it because they have this new desire to do something and to change the way that others view them and the way that they view themselves.Zach: So first of all this has been an incredible conversation, and, you know, we're coming up on time, Michael, but what I want to do is I want to go back to a word that you used earlier, trust, and really that a lot of these questions go back to--the rankings and the analytics go back to--quantifying trust, and I'm curious to know if you could give us, like, three points of thought that executives should be thinking about when it comes to building better trust within organizations? What would those three points be?Michael: I think that fairness is the most important. So the way you treat a group of people, whether they be analytics versus non-analytics, accountants versus engineers, you need to treat people the same. People read when you're not doing that. They are paying attention to whether you're doing that or not. So being consistent in the way you talk to people, respond to people, what you tweet and what you don't, it matters. So fairness is what's most important, and then making sure your actions--if you say that, you know, diversity drives innovation, people are gonna look and see if you really think that's true. So if you're saying diversity drives innovation and your executive team is not diverse, then now you lose credibility and you're not being transparent and people think it's not fair. The whole pyramid collapses based on you saying one thing and you're actually doing another, and then you want to take a look at your board of directors. You want to take a look at your executive team. You want to take a look at your pipeline and make sure that in 2023 things are going to be different. You want to make sure companies now are restructuring or laying people off. Well, look at the pool that you're laying off. Look at the pool you're restructuring. If you're not careful you're gonna erase ten years of gains is what you're doing right now. So these are the things that build trust. These are the things, fairness more important than anything else. The reason there's resistance to D&I efforts is somehow white men--some--feel like money's being taken out of their pockets.Zach: Right, this scarcity mindset, right?Michael: Yeah, the zero sum game, so you have to--if you have an ERG for African-American professionals, Asian-American professionals, you need to have one that a white male says, "I identify with this one. I identify with this one." They gotta have one too. You can't ignore anyone. It has to be for all.Zach: Michael, this has been great. I just gotta thank you again. Before we go, I'll give you a chance - any shout-outs or parting words, man?Michael: I think that entrepreneurism is a journey that's not for everybody. If you're thinking about it explore it, you know? Talk to some entrepreneurs and see what it's like, but do an honest check with you as to whether or not it's good for you. And then if you're in the corporate environment, lead with the data. You know, the data is what you're gonna need. And know that even if you have all the data, if there are people who aren't interested in diversity and inclusion, you know, the data's not gonna get it done. So, you know, get the data, use the data, make your case with the data, and if you find things are still slow, that's because the leader you're talking to just doesn't want to make a difference. You know, they don't want to change, and so then I'd update my LinkedIn profile and try to find some place where people are using data in the way that they use it for every other decision, whether it be M&A or anything else. You don't want anything different in the D&I area. You just want the consistent behavior, but don't bang your head too long or you're gonna find yourself with a headache.Zach: Michael, thank you so much, man. Look, we're gonna talk to you soon. We consider you a friend of the show. Honored, pleasure to have you. All right, y'all, so that does it for us. This has been Zach with Living Corporate. You know what we do. We're having these authentic conversations even during the rona. I pray that everyone is staying safe out there. You know where to check us out. You can just Google us. We're all over the place, okay? Living Corporate. You type that in and we're gonna pop up on something. You make sure you check us out on our website, living-corporate--please say the dash--dot com, or livingcorporate.co, livingcorporate.org, livingcorporate.net, livingcorporate.tv, livingcorporate.us, okay? Livingcorporate dot... shoot, all the livingcorporates except for livingcorporate.com. We've already talked about this. So if you type in livingcorporate.com it's gonna take you to some Australian website. [?] Australia, but we don't have that domain, okay? So livingcorporate.co, .us, .tv, or living-corporate.com. 'Til next time, y'all. This has been Zach. You've been listening to Michael C. Bush, CEO of Great Place to Work. Catch y'all next time. Peace.

Zach chats with Race2Dinner co-founders Regina Jackson and Saira Rao about the genesis of Race2D, how exactly its dinners take place, their experiences running it and so much more. This episode features explicit language. Listener discretion is advised!Connect with Saira on LinkedIn, Twitter and Instagram, and connect with Regina on Twitter.Interested in learning more about Race2Dinner? Check out their website.Follow Race2Dinner on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter.Find out how the CDC suggests you wash your hands by clicking here.Help food banks respond to COVID-19. Learn more at FeedingAmerica.org.Visit our website.TRANSCRIPTZach: What's up, y'all? Now, look, you know that we try to keep it clean on Living Corporate, but every now and then we have folks come on who are impassioned, and we are not ones to censor anybody if we really believe in the heart of what it is that they're saying and the mission that they're doing. So the conversation you're about to hear does contain some harsh language, so listener discretion is advised. Catch y'all next time.What's up, y'all? It's Zach with Living Corporate, and you know what we do. We're having real talk in a corporate world. How do we do that? We talk to black and brown entrepreneurs, executives, activists... let me see here, what else? Public servants, creatives, artists, influencers, educators, you know what I'm saying? Anybody who is black and brown or an aspirational ally. We try to have them on the podcast and have real conversations, right? These real conversations are centering underrepresented and marginalized voices. We're having conversations that often go unhad or whispered in a corner. We're trying to have those out loud and on a digital platform so that they can be accessible to everybody, and we do this weekly, and we have dope dope dope dope DOPE guests. So today we have two guests at the same time, yo, at the same time. Saira Rao and Regina Jackson. Yo, so let me--so I got these two bios here, y'all. Y'all know what we do. You know I try to read the bios just so y'all can have an idea of what's going on, then we get into it. So here we go. Saira Rao grew up in Richmond, Virginia, the daughter of Indian immigrants. For forty years, she wasted her precious time aspiring to be white and accepted by dominant white society, a futile task for anyone not born with white skin. Several years ago, Saira began the painful process of dismantling her own internalized oppression. Saira is a lawyer-by-training, a former congressional candidate, a published novelist and an entrepreneur. Now, look here, if y'all don't recognize what kind of podcast this is about to be by the bio that I read that they gave me, listen, I'ma just go ahead and drop the Flex bomb right now. It's about to be spicy in here. Now we'll go ahead and go Regina. Now, born in 1950, Regina remembers an America where everything was in Black and white. Burned into her memory are; the beatings and horrific treatment of civil rights workers throughout the South, the Goodman, Chaney & Schwerner murders, the murder of Viola Liuzzo, the murder of Martin Luther King, Jr. and the murders of President John Kennedy and his brother Robert. The violence perpetrated on innocent people going about their lives by white people, it is these memories that drive Regina to push for real change in America, which is why she co-founded Race2Dinner. Saira and Regina, welcome to the show. How are y'all doing?Regina: You know, I'm doing great. Saira?Saira: I'm doing pretty well, thank you.Zach: So I read some bios, but can we get into y'all's own stories as to why Race2Dinner came to be and how?Saira: Well, like my bio said, I ran for Congress exactly two years ago, and I ran in--we live in Denver, which is a predominantly white city, and I ran on an explicitly anti-racism [platform] about the racism within the Democratic Party, which, you know, we know there's--the Republican Party's entire platform is racism, but there's ample racism within the Democratic Party. And so, you know, what I found was a long line of white ladies wanting to have coffees, breakfasts, lunches and dinners with me, and 99.9% of the time it was for them to tell me very indignantly that it's not them, "not all white women," and then they tick off all their civil rights accomplishments in the past and their safety pins and how awesome they are, and really just telling me about how I had them wrong, that they were individual--you know, "Stop painting all white people as the same," and so, anyway, I had to do those because I was running for office and I needed to [?]. After I lost in June of 2018, I became a big target of sort of the alt-right, Breitbart, Fox, those places, and the invitations for these lunches and dinners didn't dissipate as I had hoped. They just got more and more and more. And I continued to do these lunches and dinners in good faith, recognizing by the way I was not just out hours and hours of my time. It also took a tremendous toll on my mental health. And by the way, these ladies never picked up the bill. And I was, you know, paying for dinner [?] for babysitting because I have two small children. Anyway, that's when last December this happened with Regina.Regina: So when Saira ran for office, I immediately fell in love with her because she was talking about racism that doesn't get talked about in the United States, and she was talking very provocatively about racism. She wasn't being nice. She wasn't not using the white privilege and white people. I mean, she was talking it, so I immediately volunteered for her campaign. I worked on her campaign and got to know Saira, and I was like, "Wow, I really like this woman." So I had had a white friend who said to me--she said, you know, "I'm just over Saira. She hates white people, and I'm just gonna be done with her," and then in the next breath she says to me, "But if you can arrange it, I'd like to go to lunch with her to talk about it." So I talked to [Saira] and Saira said to me--she said, "You know what, Regina? I'm not doing that anymore," she said, "But I'll tell you what. If she wants to have a dinner and invite some of her white lady friends and you do it with me," she said, "I'd be happy to do that," and thus was born Race2Dinner.Zach: Wow. It's--okay, so let's talk a little bit about, Regina, the exchange that you had. Why do you believe that your friend at the time said that Saira hates white people?Regina: Well, because Saira was saying she hated white people. [everyone laughs]Saira: [laughing] No, I didn't. I didn't say that. No.Zach: [hold on a minute there playa sfx, laughing]Regina: Okay, it's up for debate. [laughs]Saira: No, I literally never said that. So the thing about this particular woman was that I said that Beto O'Rourke is a white savior, and she was one of these women who was, like, obsessed with Beto O'Rourke and went to Texas to volunteer for Beto O'Rourke, and I said, you know, Beto O'Rourke is a white savior, and I also donated to his campaign, and if I lived in Texas I would vote for him. You can actually, you know, hold various things to be true.Zach: At the same time, yeah.Saira: At the same time, and so that's what sent her over the edge. And that's actually--at the dinner she brought that up as the thing that sent her over the edge, and she, you know, got really angry when I wouldn't budge on the fact that Beto O'Rourke is a white savior. Frankly, I think Beto O'Rourke might acknowledge himself that he's a white savior. And so, anyway, she cried. She got super mad. She did all the stuff that white ladies too.Regina: This is a white woman who called herself my friend. She thanked me for, you know, teaching her about racism and helping her to be a non-racist. She told me how much she loved me all the time, blah blah blah. When we started our Race2Dinner website and we decided to do a Patreon, you know, where people sign up for $5 a month or $12 a month. This white woman, who had told me--she's a widow, never had any children--that her income after her husband died is $200,000 a year, and I said, "Will you sign up for our Patreon?" She told me to put it [?] on Facebook. Needless to say, we are no longer friends, 'cause she talks the talk but she doesn't want to walk the walk.Zach: So you're saying she has over 200--I'm sorry, but I'm shocked, 'cause I come from humble beginnings, right? And I'm not from Denver. Like, I'm from the South. So, like, you said--just to go back a second, you said her income is over $200,000 a year?Saira: Yeah, and she won't spend $60 a year on our labor, on our writing. She wanted us to put it on Facebook for free.Regina: And see, we have really been talking about that issue, how white people don't want to see black and brown women especially paid for our work. Now, you know, they'll pay $40,000 to go hear--what's her name?Saira: Glennon Doyle.Regina: Yeah, Glennon Doyle, but they can't pay us for our labor in a personal, private, small group conversation?Saira: That includes dinner and booze.Regina: That's more white people nonsense, and I'm not having it.Zach: I mean, at a certain point you're just like [what more do you want from me? sfx] You know? Like, what is this? Like, what are we doing? Like, y'all see this effort. Y'all know that it's valuable. Recognize it financially. And y'all know that the way this system is built--capitalistically--that we need the bread to survive, so come on. Like, come up off. So I hear that, and it's interesting, 'cause Race2Dinner, it reminds me--and I want y'all to walk me through this format, 'cause I've been to a couple of events like this where, like, you get together over dinner and you talk about quote-unquote culture. I want to understand though. Like, talk to me about the format of Race2Dinner, how it works, and just how it's set up.Regina: Okay. Well, one of the first things I think there is to recognize is that most white people don't even know that they [?], okay? In the book "Waking Up White" by Debbie Irving, she talks about white culture, and us as non-white people, we recognize it because we have had to live it in order to, like you say, survive. It's perfection. It's being nice to everybody.Saira: It's talking about nothing.Regina: Yeah, don't talk about hard stuff. Don't upset people. You know, that's the culture that we were all raised in, and they still want to just talk nice, and we say, "You know what?" The other thing is they're all in their feelings. "You made me feel." Can we curse on this show?Zach: Yes, absolutely. Go ahead.Regina: [laughs] And I love to say, "Fuck your feelings." [Zach laughs] That's between you and your universe. That has nothing to do with me, but they are always up in their feelings, and that's one of the things--in Race2Dinner, if you have to cry, you have to leave the room. Zach: Really? If you start to cry, you are [?] from the table?Saira: Yeah, cry or get really angry. But to answer your question about painting a picture for you. So, you know, why is it dinners? People say is it "Why is it dinners? Why can't you do conferences and keynotes?" Blah blah blah. Here's what we know about white women. White women are devoted to being nice and polite, and there's nothing more impolite than getting up and leaving the dinner table, period. The setting is a beautiful dinner table in a woman's house where she's serving dinner and she's pouring wine. And so this is the white woman's happy place and safe place, a dinner party with other white women, right? And, you know, every once in a while maybe they go to dinner parties where there's A black woman or An Asian woman or A Latina woman, but, like, you know, they feel very comfortable, so they come in and kiss kiss, "Oh, my God, how are you? You look great, you look great," the whole nine yards. And then they sit down, and instead of "Oh, my God. What are your kids doing this summer for summer camp? Oh, my God. My husband's irritating me." We just--it's very, very much like this. Like, everyone go around the table and say why you're here, and you literally have, like, a minute or two to do that. 'Cause early on we were like, "Why are you here?" And they would just, like, pull out their resume and start telling us about how they volunteered at Planned Parenthood and they went to a Black Lives Matter rally and whatever, and so--anyway, after that, the next question is "Please go around the table and name one way in which your racism has presented itself in an action that you've done recently," and then they basically fall out of their chair. Like, you might see pee come down their legs, because it's like... they can't leave. They all want to freak out and run out of the room, but they can't because they've got this nice beef tenderloin and a glass of Chardonnay sitting there and it would be rude as fuck to do that. So then they have to actually do that.Regina: And we used to--we just changed that format, because we used to [have] everybody introduce themselves, and then we'd talk about our background and why we were there, and what we found is we would have two or three women in every dinner who would not say a freaking word. You know, the lurkers. So we finally said, "This is not okay. If people are going to be here, they need to engage." So we make everybody talk about, you know, "This is why I'm here, and this is how I notice racism in myself."Saira: In myself. So, you know, you go to one of these, like, liberal white person dinner parties, and they're sitting around for hours trashing Donald Trump and trashing the Republicans and talking about--like, they pat themselves on the back. It's like the Backpatting Olympics, right? Who is the most awesome white person in the room? This is a place--and by the way, they try. So, like, at the last dinner party--and look, these are not bad people. We've got to break down this false binary of racist bad, not racist good. That shuts down the conversation. But there's a white lady there who's lovely and [?], and we asked her "What is the racist thing you've done?" And she starts rambling, and then she says, you know, a friend of hers ends every conversation with "Me love you long time." And all the other women were like, "What?" And I was like, "No, no, no. How are YOU racist? Stop deflecting it to your friend." In that case, which she could have easily said--but she didn't, she can't [?] anything else--is "I'm racist because I've never shut that down." So that's the silence is complicity. So all this, like, "The Republicans are bad," what about you? Like, what are you doing? Like, what are you doing? Like, silence is complicity, you know? And even though the Republicans are quote "bad," white America allowed this to go on. Donald Trump didn't invent racism. He just capitalized on it.Regina: That was my turning point, this whole Make America Great nonsense. I'm like, "No. I'm done with white people nonsense. I'm done." You know, they need to step up and call a thing and be the wonderful people that they seem to think they are.Zach: And Regina, so your profile, the fact that you were--you know, like, you were active. Like, you was moving around during the civil rights movement and you're still here in 2020. So, like, have you ever had situations where people have, like, either alluded to or told you to, like, get over it or it was a really long time ago or times have changed, and if so, like, how do you react or respond in those situations?Regina: You know, I don't think anybody would tell me that. [everybody laughs] But I have [this?] attitude. You know how us black women can give off that "Don't fuck with me today?" Zach: Yes. [everybody laughing]Regina: [?] going on generally 24/7. It's like--[to this day sfx] So not today, not ever. Not having it.Zach: Oh, my goodness. I love it. The spice. The energy on this podcast, it's reached incredible levels, and we're really just, like, still in the beginning. So when it comes to--and even, like, honestly, like, the tone of this conversation, right, the unapologetic, like, very to the point manner in which y'all are speaking and in which, like, I see, like, your website communicates as well as your online personas. I'm curious about what feedback or critique you get when it comes to, like, the idea of civility, right? 'Cause I feel like even today there's a lot of folks who are still, like, really hanging their shingle on civility, and they use it almost, like, as a cudgel to, like, silence voices. I'm curious as to how y'all respond to that.Saira: That's what it is. Calls for civility is calls for silencing. And I'm just curious, when has--so civility is code for being nice, right? When has nice saved people of color [?]? Like, was niceness there to save Trayvon Martin? Is being nice saving the brown and black people who are dying in concentration camps around the country? Is niceness [saving?] the Palestinians, upon whom we are, you know, aiding [Israel? and dropping bombs upon them?] Like, being nice is code for doing whatever the fuck you want to oppress people and not getting called out for it. That's what being nice is.Regina: Exactly. And remember that Dr. King said that white [moderates,] they would rather have order than justice. You know what? I'm not about order. Fuck your rules, okay? Fuck hurting your feelings. Fuck being nice. Let's talk the real deal. Let's talk about how you're hurting black and brown children, how black boys and girls get treated in school, how black people are being [?] out of their communities onto the streets by gentrification? Let's talk about all that, and if it requires me to be nice, then it ain't happening.Saira: Yeah, you know what's super not nice? Stop and Frisk. You know what's super not nice? The Muslim ban. You know what's super not nice? These concentration camps. And so I'll tell you what though, Zach, is, you know, before I even ran for Congress I spent a year, 2017, going the civil way. I went to the University of Virginia, and at that time most of my [?] in life were friends that I had met at the University of Virginia, overwhelmingly white women. By the way, like, I was in an all-white sorority and I wore [Laura Ashley?]. So I used to think that I was a white woman. [?] And I tried. You know, I did dinners with these friends. I cried, they cried. I made them--you know, I patted them on the back. I massaged their feet. I think I might have painted a toenail or two. I mean, I did all the nice, civil things, and every single time--it was, like, straight out of an SNL skit... which, by the way, SNL is also a toxic, white, liberal mess, but it was, you know, "We don't like your tone. You just seem really angry." My favorite from one of these women was "What are you doing? You're completely alienating everyone." And I said to her, "Who's everyone?" And I said, "Are you unaware that there are people of color who actually are in agreement with what I'm saying?" And she was like, "Oh, I never thought of that," because she literally--the only people of color [she knows?] were me, one--and she's a nurse, so a couple of her colleagues. She has a black woman colleague and a brown woman colleague, and she said to me, "Well, I asked them, and they said that they think you're crazy, and, like, [that?] racism is untrue." And I'm like, "They're not [safe?] to say that. You're, like, their boss," you know? And somebody said--it's very funny. They're like, "If you're white and you have a brown or black friend who doesn't talk about white people, then you don't have a brown or black friend." Regina: I was gonna say, now, my big thing, I started working, volunteering, mentoring in a high school about six years ago, and I would--the woman who ran the program and started the program woudl tell me all the time that I hurt her feelings. You know, everything you say hurts their feelings, and I sounded like I was angry, and I just started saying, "You know what? I'm mad as hell, and I could give a shit about your feelings, so deal with it." She finally resigned, and I [?], and now the program is being run by people of color.Saira: Yeah. And by the way, like, of course we're angry. I'm sorry. Like, white women literally go batshit crazy if their spin class instructor is 5 minutes late. Go fucking crazy, right? They're angry and it's fine, like, that's fine, but we're not supposed to be angry about systemic oppression. We're not allowed to be angry about that, but they can be angry about a yoga instructor or a spin class instructor being 5 minutes late. It just goes to show you they don't care--it's not only that they don't care, they actively are fine with being participants in this. They just don't want you to call them out for it, and in some ways that's the difference between Republican woman and Democratic women, the 50% that voted for Donald Trump versus the one who kind of sat idly by on let Donald Trump win, you know? Do you know how many white liberal women I know who voted for Hillary Clinton, but their husbands voted for Donald Trump, and they didn't speak a word [?] Hillary Clinton. They didn't put a Hillary Clinton sign in their yard. When I would come into their house they would be like, "You can't talk about Hillary Clinton here because of So-and-so." So what's the difference between the husband who is voting for Donald Trump and the wife who is silent? Nothing. You know, feasance versus non-feasance. It's all the same thing. Not acting is acting.Zach: And so I'm curious, like, again, the delivery of this, and even with the [criticism?] that you've received like "You're not being nice" or "It's not being [?]" or whatever the case may be, and yet Race2Dinner is a whole organization. Like, y'all are an active organization, so clearly--Regina: That's the other thing [?]. These white women want to say, "Well, what do we do with our money?" It's like, "It's not your business. Do you go into Nordstroms and say, "What do you do with your money?" We're not a non-profit. This is a business."Zach: And so I'm curious. Like, it seems as if your approach was so off-putting and alienating that your business would not be viable, and yet it is, right? [Both: Yeah.] So talk me through--Saira: That's a good question. You just asked the question "Why?" One woman put it to us like this not too long ago, and I think this is it. She said a lot of stuff. She's the woman who said to us--I said at this dinner, particularly dinner, you all don't see Regina and I as your [equals.] You don't see our humanity. You do not see our children and grandchildren as your children and grandchildren's equals. You don't see their humanity. 7 out of the 8 of them just shook their head. "Oh, my God. Wrong, wrong, wrong," right? Woman to my left, you know, God bless her, she paused before she spoke and she said, "You know what? I'm not gonna lie. I don't. I don't see the two of you as my equal. I don't see your humanity. I don't see your children and your grandchildren, Regina, as equal to mine," and there was a collective gasp, right? Like, they couldn't believe it, and then little by little they were like, "Yeah. I mean, that's right," and at the end of the dinner this woman said, "I feel such a sense of relief. I feel relieved," because white supremacy kills everybody, including white people. It's like a disease. It's toxic and it kills you. And she said, "This is the first time I've been able to actually acknowledge this to myself, say it out loud, say it in a room full of my peers and say it front of the people that I harm every [day?]," and I think that's it right there. She articulated why we're able to get people to come to these dinners, because it is a relief for them, at least, you know, the ones who are willing to accept it and come in with fully open minds and leave their fragility at the [door.] I think it's a relief.Regina: And, you know, one of the things that I want white women to do--and I don't know why it's so hard, but it is, is to just step up when you see injustice, when you see racism, when you hear it, call that shit out and let things fall where they fall. They never do that. They're always dependent on us to be the ones calling it out, and I'm like, "Y'all started this shit. Get in here and stop it." Saira: Right, just like men created and benefit from misogyny, so men have to dismantle misogyny. We can't. Women cannot. Similarly, white people created and benefit from white supremacy, so they're the ones who have to do it. So this is--by the way, we don't allow for other women of color in the room, because the one time we did--it was a Chicago dinner. There was another Indian woman in the room, and so, you know, she's a member of the community. These are people that she sees at pick-up and drop-off at her kid's school. Every time we were speaking, looking at her and waiting to see and asking, "Well, do you feel like this? Do you feel like this?" It was a deeply unsafe space for her, just like my nurse friend asking her women of color colleagues if they felt like that. That's not safe, right? So we don't want to put other women of color in a situation where they're answering to white women in that room because it's not safe for them.Zach: In y'all's experience of having this organization, this [business?], and facilitating these dinners, like, what has been the most eye-opening experience?Regina: My most eye-opening experience is we had a dinner with several white women, 8, and maybe 4 of them had adopted children of color, okay? Black children, and we had one young woman--I would say she was maybe in her 30s. She had adopted a young black boy. This woman had the audacity to say that if her family and friends said something racist or harmful to or about her child--Saira: In front of her child.Regina: In front of her child! She did not correct them because they loved him. That's the biggest [?] I've ever heard in my life, and if I could've taken that kid away from her I would have done it.Zach: And so then--you know, a piece recently came out--and Saira, this was something that you actually tweeted about. I believe it was someone who actually attended a Race2Dinner event, and they said, you know, "Most folks don't like Saira."Saira: Well, she said, "A lot of people hate Saira." [everyone laughs]Regina: And I'm like, "There, it's out there. We can get over it." [laughing] Saira: Yeah.Zach: And so I'm curious about what does it to look like--like, what does it look like to continue to do this work in light of those types of critiques? Like, where do you get your strength and resilience from to continue this type of work?Saira: It's not easy. I'll say Regina's a big source of strength and a big source of resilience for me. Here's the deal. It's a process, right? And I would be completely lying if I said it didn't bother me when--you know, look, I've gotten used to most of it. I've gotten used to the white supremacist trolls. I've gotten used to the Nazis. What I do not enjoy is getting doxxed. That happened over the weekend by a white woman in Abu Dhabi. Doxxed me and my family, so put out our private information and tried to send Nazis to come hurt my family. I do not enjoy that. I don't enjoy that my children get left out of things, you know, because their moms hate my guts. I don't like that. It's uncomfortable a little bit to run into these old friends of mine around town, and I know what they think of me and I know what they say about me. I don't love that, but, you know, besides that, it's okay. It sounds really weird. Like, I'm actually okay, because I realized that I was filling my life with a lot of nonsense, and how many times--I mean, you know, I was thinking back on this because we're working on a bunch of stuff, but I've had to, like, dig deep, how many times--I was at a party once in college with these friends. It wasn't even a party. It was a dinner, right? And I couldn't leave because it would have been rude to leave. And it was two white women sitting across from me who were not really close friends, me, and then this white woman to my left who was a very good friend, and one white woman said to the other--her last name is an Asian last name but she's white, and she said, "Oh, my God. When I got the letter in the mail that you were gonna be my roommate, I freaked out and I said to my parents, "What have I done in my life to deserve an [Asian?] roommate?"" And they started laughing, and they were like, "And look, it turned out great!" And my friend to the left of me, she was laughing too, and I was just sitting there stunned, and I said, "Hey, you guys. I'm Asian," and then they all took another sip of their [beer?], like, spit it out laughing, and they go, "Oh, yeah, but you're not one of those kind of Asians." And I said, "No, I am. I'm actually 100%--" They go, "You know, like, the accent and, like, the weird food--"Zach: Weird food?Saira: Yeah, "And the smelly, weird food," and I looked to my friend, and she just sat there and was laughing with them, and so I did what I had always done, which I started laughing too. So I sold myself down the river and I upheld--that's how [people of color?] uphold white supremacy is I laughed as well and I let it go. How many of those experiences have I had in my life? I cannot even count them. There are too many to count, and so I'm living an honest life, and you know what that means, living an honest life? If that [means I'm hated?], so be it. Hate me.Regina: You know, as a black woman, I have learned many, many years ago that the only way I can sruvive is I affirm myself on a daily basis. I know who I am. I know what is okay with me. I know what's not okay. So when people start talking shit, "Regina's this, that and the other--" And I tell my mentees that. The best way to have a good life is know who you are. Affirm yourself, and when you get crap from anybody else, you don't have to own that because you know who you are.Saira: Yeah. And Zach, just further to that by the way, I'm trying to start affirming myself because Regina really truly is the most [evolved?] person I know. I think a big part of why a lot of people come at me--and it's all kinds of people. It's not just white people. It's black people, it's Indian people, it's Latino people. It's I'm the first generation of the "model minority" born and raised in this country, right? So we're new, and we're supposed to stay in our lane, and we're supposed to be extremely grateful and not call out white supremacy because we are the model minority. So there's something extremely jarring to have an Asian lady in the middle of Colorado speaking like this. I think that's a big part of it too. I mean, lots and lots and lots and lots of South Asian people really hate my guts.Regina: They just want her to shut up.Saira: You know? They will say--I had [?] Indian people say to me, "Stop talking about Black Lives Matter," and I was like, "They know that there's a Muslim ban. Like, they know." So I'm so confused. I mean, you're called Apu how many times a week? You're called [?] how many times? And they're just, like, pretending like it didn't happen. And really funny, the only Indian/South Asian PAC didn't invite me to their gala in 2018 when I was running for Congress, and so [Andrew Yang?] actually invited me to go as his guest. And so I went. I flew out and I get there, and it's 8 other--something like that, 8 other--South Asians all [?]. By the way, they're all, like, super white platforms and [?], and I show up with Andrew and everyone's literally like, "Who the fuck brought her?" Like, "Why did you all bring her?" I mean, it was just really funny. I mean, it's funny "haha," but yeah, like, my own people hate my guts. Regina: You will love this. Saira says at our dinners, "I'm anti-black and all of you are racist," and I go, "Guess what? Black people know that." We know that every immigrant group thinks they're better than us. We know everybody would rather be whatever than black. That's not news.Saira: So we talk about. So I just want to add that one last thing to what Regina said. You know, we'll say, "Who's racist in this room?" And most of the time no one raises their hand except for me, and they're like, "Wait, what?" And [I'm like?] "[I'm Asian?], so I've been trained institutionally to be anti-black," and then they'll look at Regina because then the next step--you know, Step 1 is dividing and conquering, and they look at Regina like, "Oh, my God. Look. You've got an anti-black colleague here." Regina's like, "All Asians are anti-black." Like, if I'm asking white people to acknowledge their own institutional bigotry, it would be wildly hypocritical of me and completely lack of self-aware if I wasn't able and unwilling to do that myself.Zach: And so it's interesting because, like--I just find it all so very intriguing, because, like, the closer we get--and I'm continuing to have conversations about the fact that November is coming up, and, like, the closer that we get to November, it's interesting that we're, like--a lot of us are still kind of moving, like, business as usual, but--Regina: I know! It's scary.Zach: It's really strange, right? Like, even though, like, we remember all of the chaos, like, that happened four years ago, like, in and outside the workplace. I recall the work day--Regina: [?] the election.Saira: We know that. We know that.Zach: Right, and so it's just strange to me that, like, even from a diversity, equity and inclusion perspective that we're not really talking about that. Like, we're not preparing--Regina: Yeah. Where is the [Congressional Black Causus?] Where the fuck are they? [everyone laughing]Zach: Oh, my gosh. This has been--oh, man, this is great. But no, I find it really curious, I find it really curious. So Race2Dinner, it's white women attending the dinners, and then you both are facilitating the dinner. What do you believe it is about--like, 'cause typically we talk about gender equity and we're rarely intersectional. We rarely talk in [?]. We typically just say "men and women," and the default of course there is white women. It seems as if there's still a lot of work to be done when it comes to white women understanding their place when it comes to understanding diversity, equity and inclusion and how they fit in this role and, like, what power they wield, and I'm curious, why do you think there's still a reticence to engage that? Even from, like, just an intellectual exercise?Regina: Well, you know, I like to say, first of all, you all--everything you've made has been on the backs of black people. Let's get that out there first, okay? So that's the first thing they need to understand. They wouldn't have what they have today if black people had not fought and died [in] the civil rights movement. So that's the first thing I want to say. The second thing, when we talk about intersectionality, we're really talking about black women and their intersection of both race and sex. So white women--this is what we try to say. You know, the foot of patriarchy is on your neck just like it's on yours. You want to continue earning 75 cents for every dollar the white man earns? Fine. But if you want ever to have equity, enjoy the same rights that white males do, you better come and join us, because we've been fighting this for a long time, and we're gonna continue to fight it with or without you, but they also have the proximity to the power. They have the proximity to the money. These are their fathers, their uncles, their brothers, their sons. So that's why they need to be engaged in this.Saira: Well, and the reason, you know, they always pick whiteness over gender is because they're benefiting greatly from whiteness, and so they've been born and raised--but they would never say that, right? That's the lack of honesty and transparency. They've been born and raised to see themselves as the greatest victims on the planet because they are below white men. So that's it. That's where their analysis of inequity--that's where it stops. It starts and stops on them being the biggest victims on the planet, and as a result they erase women of color. We don't even exist in their minds. I'll tell you what, Zach. Use this whole hoopla around the 19th Amendment 100-Year anniversary this year. It's a great window into white feminism. Susan Becky Anthony totally fucked black women, right? So the 19th Amendment [was not?] the women's right to vote. That was the white women's right to vote. And so we're not--like, black and brown women are not celebrating the 19th Amendment, but you would think all of these freaking white suits all over the place running around and talking about how this was, you know, the year that women [?]--that's not true, and there's a direct line between Susan B. Anthony and Nancy Pelosi who regularly throws her women of color colleagues under the bus, starting with Maxine Waters and every member of the squad. So I'm tired of it. I'm tired of white women, you know, lumping all women's rights together. That's not true. That's just not true.Regina: And they know it.Saira: They know it. They're pretending like they don't know it.Regina: See, the biggest issue that we have is them pretending that they don't know shit. They're here to pretend like they don't know how bad it is for women of color. They know. They're gonna pretend like, you know, we're all treated equally. They know. So I want them to stop pretending and tell the fucking truth.Saira: We ask every dinner--this is well over 100 white women around the country--how many of you would trade places with me or Regina? Guess how many of them have raised their hands. Guess.Zach: Zero.Regina: The first dinner. No, one from the first dinner, remember? That we filmed?Saira: Yeah. I mean, it's between zero to one. So they were [?] about that, so they know. They know. So they first tell us that they wouldn't trade places with us because they're better than we are, and then they'll all say--they stopped doing this though because we put an end to this nonsense--"I'm just hear to listen and learn. I'm just here to learn." You already know because you wrote the book about white supremacy. You had it optioned [?]. You've made every film. It's won every Oscar. It's been exported to every country around the world. It's been translated into every language. And you're asking us to explain the book that you wrote? Like, I'm so--that's bullshit. That's bullshit, and we are not [?]--that's fine, that's the way it is, but we're not here for it. We're not here for your stupid ass lies.Regina: That's right.Zach: [laughs]Regina: We can tell you can't wait to have dinner with us, right?Zach: No, no, I'm here for it. I'm here for it. I actually have some mentors that would love this, and actually what I really want to do is I want to give y'all space. So we'll make sure we'll put all your information in the show notes, but I want to give you actually some space, like, to plug all your information. Where can [they learn?] more, how people can sign up, all of that.Saira: Race2Dinner, R-A-C-E-2-dinner.com, and find me on Twitter--I'm Tweeting quite often--@sairasameerarao. Regina: Regina Jackson. I'm on Twitter @ReginaJacksonMe... I think. You know, I'm old. I don't know all this stuff. [both laugh] But we have a couple of great people working with us who schedule all of our dinners, and you can reach them through the website. And also we have a Race2Dinner Facebook page, and Race2Dinner is on Twitter, and Race2Dinner is on Instagram.Saira: And we're also, Zach, starting to do corporate executive teams, so boards and executive teams, because they seem to need it because diversity and inclusion is a big hoax, as you know, and, like, 95% of diversity and inclusion is run by white women. And hey, companies, white women are not diverse and are not inclusive. Regina: Well, and where do you think they get their information about racism?Saira: Yeah.[Flex bomb sfx]Saira: What we've heard from a lot of--like, the three non-white diversity and inclusion officers in the country have talked to us and said, you know, "How great would it be if you two could come in and say the things to the board and my colleagues that we can't say without getting fired?" They can get fired. We can say the shit they can't.Regina: And I just had this conversation with my husband yesterday. We've got some things going on in Colorado with our judiciary. The office of the Supreme Court in Colorado has nine black employees out of 260 something, and none of those are at a management level. So we were having this conversation and I said to him, "You know, Gary, me and Saira, we can talk shit 'cause we don't have to answer to anybody. I don't have to keep a job. We don't have to play politics. We get to just call a thing a thing." Saira: And I think ultimately, if we want to blow a little smoke up our bums, I think that people kind of like us at these dinners.Regina: I could care. [laughs]Saira: No, no, but he's asking why they [?].Regina: Oh, yeah. They want to be our friends. They want black and brown people to like them. And this is really interesting. I just--while we're talking about this, I just got a three-page letter from a white woman friend of mine--[I've known?] her probably 40 years--who is married to a black man, and in the letter she wanted--she had read The Guardian and she wanted to know about if we were gonna take on the issue of how white women that are married to black women are treated in black women spaces, okay? So that's what she wrote me about, and I talked to my husband and I said, "Here's the issue. We can't trust you." I said, "When 53% of [white women] voted for Donald Trump, and then they want to tell us, "Oh, we're in your corner," we can't trust you." So until we can trust you, I doubt that we're gonna accept you.Saira: Yeah, and Regina said that at one dinner last summer. You know, we were talking about trust, and one of the women said, "Well, that hurts my feelings. You mean to tell me you don't trust any of us in this room?" And she goes, "No, I do." She goes, "I trust Saira with my life," but she goes, "I don't trust the rest of you bitches." [both laughing]Regina: You know, it is what it is. In order to be trusted you have to be trustworthy, and white women have not proven themselves to be that.Saira: Not just that, they've proven themselves to NOT be that.Regina: Yeah.Zach: And so then, you know, in some of the pieces that I read about Race2Dinner, I know that there are executive leaders who are white women who attend Race2Dinner, and I'm curious about, from your perspective, what is it that you're seeing leaders are doing or not doing that is hampering inclusiveness and equity in their respective workforces?Saira: We just had a dinner in Chicago, what, like, two weeks ago, and I would say this was one of those--you were asking what were sort of the most poignant moments, well, this was one of the more poignant moments for me because we kind of saw the whole ecosystem at play. So this woman is a nurse in Chicago, and she said--and she, like, got teary, and she said a month earlier she was in a meeting with 9 other white women nurses and doctors and their boss, who's a white guy. A doctor, okay? A doctor. These are people who deal with brown and black lives all the time. And he said that the big thing they need to tackle in 2020 [was?] hiring foreign-born doctors, and she said, "Well, guess what I did?" And we were like, "We know what you did. Nothing, right?" So she said, "I went through the whole thing in my head. "Maybe he didn't mean it." But she was like, "No, all the foreign-born people that we've been hiring, Norwegian and French doctors. We had been hiring brown and black doctors." And she said, "I didn't say anything. I didn't say a word." And I said, "Did anyone else?" And she said no. So that to me was like, "Oh, my God." And I said, "[?] that. So you just upheld--what you all, the ten of you white women did, was every bit as toxic as what the white guy did."Regina: And harmful.Saira: And harmful. And so, you know, I said, "What if you broke the cycle there? What if you had said something?" And then Regina of course said, which is true, "Here are some of the ramifications. Let's play this out. You could have been fired, right? They would make up an excuse to fire you. "You've become a troublemaker" or whatever. You become demoted. You're ghosted. All the stuff that we've experienced, but they would think twice before saying and doing this harmful stuff the next time. Like, using your voice in these professional settings is so important because it moves the needle in a way that [?] they can actually move the needle. And, you know, she totally got it. Meanwhile, white lady to her right does exactly what they always do 'cause they need to set themselves apart. She goes, "Ugh, I can't believe that you did that. I would never do that." I was like, "No, no, no. Like, let's back it up. Of course you would, and you do, so why do you feel--" She goes, "Well, I know that you think that it's not possible that I'm not like that," and I was like, "You're all like that by training, you know?" And so, anyway, it was the need to separate herself from, you know, classic white woman behavior, and what was great is the other women at the table did come after that woman and say, "Come on, you know that we all do this. We're all silent at dinner tables. We're all silent in executive meetings."Regina: Exactly. One of the things that I make sure that I tell women, this is just the beginning. If you are going to be in this work, #1: It's work. You will be doing this for the rest of your life. #2: If you expect to gain anything, boy, are you wrong. You're gonna lose. You're gonna lose relationships. You're gonna lose jobs. You're gonna lose friends. This is not a winning game. It's not a winning game for us, and it's definitely not a winning game for white people.Zach: Oooh. See, I don't have sound effects for, like, spiciness. That's why I've been dropping that Flex bomb from time to time, but I will say this has been incredible. Before we let y'all go, any parting words?Regina: I want to shout-out to Genevieve and Lisa.Saira: The two white women who work with us.Regina: Yep.Zach: Come on, white ladies. [air horns sfx]Regina: Thank you for having us on this show, and I'm looking forward to listening to this interview.Zach: We're looking forward to everybody hearing it. Y'all, yo, now, I told y'all at the top of this it was gonna be spicy, so y'all don't--don't be emailing me with your complaints. You want to see the manager? I'm the manager. Y'all know we are unbought and unbossed, okay?Regina: That manager stuff doesn't work with me, so I get you. [laughs]Zach: Yes. No, it's not. All the emails go to me, Ade and Aaron, so we not--nope. [laughs] Y'all, this has been--man, this has been a dope conversation. You've been listening to the co-founders of Race2Dinner, and just thank y'all, thank y'all. Saira Rao, Regina Jackson. Make sure you check us out on Instagram @LivingCorporate, on Twitter @LivingCorp_Pod. Just Google us, you know what I'm saying? If you look up Living Corporate we're gonna pop up there. SEO is strong enough, okay? Check us out on all of our domains, www.living-corporate--please say the dash--dot com, livingcorporate.co, livingcorporate.us, livingcorporate.org, livingcorporate.net. We got all the different domains, y'all, we just don't have livingcorporate.com yet. Like, Australia owns livingcorporate.com, but one day we're gonna get that domain too. And shoot, if you have questions just make sure you just DM us. DMs are wide open. You don't have to follow us back. We're thirsty like that. Just hit us up. You can also email us at livingcorporatepodcast@gmail.com. Until next time, this again has been Zach, and you've been listening to Regina Jackson and Saira Rao, co-founders of Race2Dinner. Make sure y'all check out the information in your show notes, and make sure you sign up and go to have a racy conversation. All right, y'all. Peace.

Zach sits down with former StubHub and Facebook alum Bärí A. Williams to chat about intersectional identities. Bärí also talks about her upcoming book "Diversity in the Workplace: Eye-Opening Interviews to Jumpstart Conversations about Identity, Privilege, and Bias" dropping March 31st. She shares what inspired her to write it and talks a bit about the challenge she faced in efficiently categorizing so many intersectional identities when it came to the 25 people she interviewed for the book.Pre-order Bärí's book on Amazon.Connect with Bärí on LinkedIn, Twitter and Instagram. Check out her personal website by clicking here.Find out how the CDC suggests you wash your hands by clicking here.Help food banks respond to COVID-19. Learn more at FeedingAmerica.org.TRANSCRIPTZach: What's up, y'all? This is Zach with Living Corporate, and, you know, you know what we do, right? It's a Tuesday. Hopefully you're bunkered in somewhere, not panicked--what's the word? Oh, using an abundance of caution and, you know, keeping away from folks that don't wash they hands. You already--okay, anyway, we're not gonna talk about that. The point is you're taking care of yourself. Maybe you're listening to some smooth jazz and you realize, "Oh, snap, I need to listen to the Living Corporate podcast," and here we are, so what's up? You know that we are centereing black and brown voices at work, and we do that by having authentic conversations with folks across a wide array of industries, okay? I'm talking about energy to transportation to telecommunications. I'm talking about lawyers and doctors and professors and, shoot, hourly employees, activists, influencers. I mean, anybody really, as long as they're willing and ready to really talk about the folks that are most impacted, most marginalized, in this world that we live in, and today is no different. We have Bärí Williams on the show. Bärí Williams, you know, she's a lot of different things to a lot of different people. You know, for me to try to, you know, wrap that up in a quick little intro would be inappropriate, so we're gonna get to know Bärí in this conversation and talk a little bit about what she has going on, and we hope you enjoy it. And with that being said, Bärí, what's up? Bärí: How are you doing?Zach: I'm doing really good, I'm doing really good. I know we were talking off-mic about, you know, staying rona free. Bärí: Man... that rona.Zach: That rona. [both laugh] It's not playing doe. They said Chuck got the rona?Bärí: Yeah. Yeah.Zach: Chuck got that rona... When Tom Hanks--Bärí: Tom Hanks got the rona.Zach: When Tom Hanks--when Tom Ladarius Hanks got the rona I said, "Okay, we need to slow down."Bärí: Fire yourself. [both laugh] Tom Ladarius. But also yes, because he's from Oakland.Zach: He's from Oakland. And this is the thing, when he called [?] I said, "Oh, okay."Bärí: Oh, no. So here's the thing. The funny part about that is Tom Hanks was in my uncle's graduating class, in the same high school and all that. So that's a real thing. Like, Tom Hanks knew about [?].Zach: Man. Well, see, I knew--so, you know, the apple don't fall far from the tree.Bärí: That doesn't explain Chet Hanks though.Zach: We not gonna talk about Chet? [laughs]Bärí: I don't have anything for Chet.Zach: Man. Boy, that blackness went away when he realized his parents was sick doe.Bärí: Right. That patois was gone.Zach: That patois was--I didn't hear--no patois ting--[laughs]Bärí: "Mom and Dad are sick, guys. Thanks for your prayers."Zach: Snap. He was tatted up doe. But yeah, [laughs]--Bärí: He tried.Zach: He did, he did. But yeah, okay, okay, okay. Look, there's a variety of things we could talk about, right? Like, a lot of stuff is going on. This is not typically a current events podcast. I do want to talk a little bit about the book that you have.Bärí: Yeah, yeah. Out March 31st. Diversity in the Workplace: Eye-Opening Interviews to Get Your Conversations Poppin'. I interviewed 25 different people, and what was super interesting about it was it was 25 people that I picked, and I got probably five or six interviews deep and I told the editor, "Hey, I know we want to segment these into five different categories, but all of these people are intersectional. So you can figure out where you want to put 'em. I'm not gonna make that determination." Because who am I to say that somebody being LGBTQ and Christian outweighs, you know, maybe how they're genderfluid or express themselves? I'm not gonna--Zach: Yeah, you're not gonna rank that.Bärí: Yeah, or how when I talk to two black women in the spirits industry I'm not gonna rank whether they feel that they're black first or a woman first. "So you put them where you want them, but here they are."Zach: You're absolutely right. I mean, I think when you force--I think about, like, Feminista Jones. Like, she talks about this from time to time. It's, like, this idea that you make black women choose between their femininity, their womanhood or their blackness, and, like, that's violence, right? Like, you need to let people be all of who they are.Bärí: I totally agree. I would say what's hard for me with that though is that I can only speak for my experience, but I have always been black first, and the reason being is that all of the experiences in my life would not be different if I were still black and a man, and that's, like, wow.Zach: Let's talk about that. Break down that down a little bit for me.Bärí: Child, we can talk about it. My mama literally just texted me and said "I feel asleep reading your book. This is really good. I didn't know people were out here living like this." [both laugh] But yeah, I feel like--and I've been told this before, and it probably isn't a secret to you. I can have a bit of a dominant personality. [laughs] And that is--but I feel like that is not abnormal for black women. Period. Zach: It's not. My mom is like that.Bärí: Exactly, and my mom was like that, and my son's mom is like that. Which means me. [both laugh] So... I mean, if you're used to it you know how to deal with it, but the harder part, at least for me, is working within that framework in a corporate environment. What does that mean, to be a strong black woman in a white, predominantly male, sort of passive aggressive environment? And the answer is I still don't know, 'cause they say they want one thing, and then when they get it they're like, "Ooh... this is a little-- This is more than I thought."Zach: Well, I think a lot of folks do say that they want certain things, but it's like--you know, when you finally experience this, particularly when it comes to--you know, people say they want diversity, they want inclusion, and it's like, "Yeah, but until you're--"Bärí: Until it makes you uncomfortable.Zach: "You're in a room and you're doing a presentation and then three people who don't look like you raise their hand asking you a bunch of questions that you weren't prepared for. Then all of a sudden you ain't really like that," right?Bärí: Yeah, that's exactly it. And, like, I touch on that a lot in the book. So, in the book, it's segmented into five different categories. So it's Race, Gender, Age and Ability, Religion and Culture, and LGBTQ. And when I say that there were only--I interviewed 25 people. I actually interviewed more than 25 and let the editor decide what she thought--the editor was also a black woman, which was, like, fantastic. So, like, she got me, and that's very rare, particularly in publishing. And she read it and she was like, "Yeah, these are really, really good, and this is hard to figure out where to put folks," because you have people who are, you know, dealing with issues around culture and race, and then you have issues dealing with, you know, sexuality and race, and then you have people dealing with gender and religion, and so yeah, where do you put them? So out of the 25 people that we ended up selecting, in the end, only two sit cleanly in one bucket, and what was interesting about that is they were both Asian men. Zach: Okay, yeah. Bärí: Everyone else, you know, fit into multiple categories, and that's one thing we talk about is, like, how do you navigate being in multiple categories and fitting into a predominantly straight white male able-bodied world?Zach: And, you know, I think also, like, it pushes up against this narrative of, or just this binary mindset that we have about everything, right? You're either this or you're that or it's this or it's that, and it's like, that's just not the way the world works, and, like, people are really complex, but I think, like, part of, like, this decentering of whiteness, particularly white male straight able-bodiedness, is forcing people to realize that not only--like, these concepts are not new. It's just that certain things are happening now where you can't ignore those non-white male groups anymore.Bärí: Yeah, and I think people are very, very uncomfortable with that, very, and so part of it is in the book there are takeaways from each chapter. There are key--it starts with definitions in terms of, like, what are some things you're gonna see in here that people have said in their interviews that's gonna be prevalent and super relevant? Like white saviors, okay? And I didn't feel afraid to go there. Like, I know some people are gonna be like, "Ooh, white savior? So you're insulting--" No, I'm not, but you also think you're wearing a cape and you can save us all, and that's now what we're asking you to do, and also, like, you need to know that you're doing this. It's white saviors, it's understanding the difference between, you know, being cis and--like, people just--just terms and things that people may not be familiar with and to get them comfortable with the idea of that terminology and then how to use it.Zach: I think that's really important too, right? So, you know, we talk about white fragility. There are different types of fragility too. Black men can exhibit a certain level of fragility. I think, like, people who are in any position of relative privilege--relative privilege, now. Relative privilege. Have a potential to exhibit fragility, and I think folks don't necessarily like being educated when they're wrong. So, like, having something, a resource... and, like, Google is free, y'all, so don't... but anyway.Bärí: Child, I tell people that all the time.Zach: [laughs] Even if, like, getting corrected in public or by another human makes you uncomfortable, I mean, you could at least--I mean, you could engage with your own fragility in prviate. But anyway, the point is, having a book--Bärí: I will tell you, my husband is a product manager for Google, and he works on the Android wearables team, so he doesn't even actually work for the search engine, but when I ask him a question and he thinks it's dumb, he'll just send me the link--I'm trying to remember the acronym, but basically the acronym stands for "Let me Google that for you." Zach: Yeah, somebody sent that to me one time and--like, but this is the thing about that... and that's cute, and that's your husband and stuff, but let me tell you something. I remember one time I was at work and I asked somebody a legitimate question--Bärí: If somebody did that to me at work though I would want to fight.Zach: I said, "Wait a second. Let me tell you what it's not gonna be. You gonna answer my question, okay?" Don't play. Don't play with me. [laughs] Bärí: Like, there is a whole song out here in the Bay that was made that's called "What You Ain't Gon' Do," so... [Zach laughs]Zach: That's 'cause if I didn't have to talk to you I wouldn't, so don't--Bärí: Go YouTube that, and you might want to make that the outro music, 'cause--[laughs] 'Cause yeah, it's fine for Jamie to do that to me, but if somebody else did that to me I would probably roll up on your desk. Zach: [laughs] "So explain this. Why did you send this?"Bärí: Right? "So let's talk, Bob. Let me tell you what you ain't gon' do."Zach: And what ain't gon' be. Okay, so no, that's--let me ask you this. So, like, what was the inspiration to write the book?Bärí: Many things. I think--and this is gonna be long-winded and, but I remember being five years old--and my mom is a retired teacher from the Oakland [Unified?] School District, and she and a couple of colleagues sat around our dining room table in our apartment and they created what ended up being the oratorical festival, which to our surprise was made into a documentary on HBO last month. And she didn't know and I didn't know, and she was like, "Oh, look at this!" And I was like, "Yeah! Also, why are you not in it?" But I let that go. I let that go. I'ma let that go and let God. [both laugh] And she actually--what's funny about it is she was like, "I don't care." Like, if somebody's talking about this and it still exists, like, that's enough. Like, that was her goal. And so I remember sitting there looking at that, and I remember participating in the first year, and I won in the first grade for, like, my category, and I was like, "Did you rig this?" And she was like, "No," but what it did was it gave me a voice, and she cultivated that throughout my entire life when I wasn't, you know, doing debate time in high school and junior UN League. Like, all of that. So I always felt like I had something to say and, you know, everything doesn't deserve a response. I mean, I'm still learning that at 40. [laughs] But she taught me, like, when something does deserve a response, make sure you have a very calculated thing to say about it, and so I started to do that, and then I decided to write, and it was writing articles and op-eds in New York Times and Fast Company and Fortune and Forbes, and it made me think, "There's a [?] there, and there are things that people are not discussing in these tech companies that I see because I'm in them, and we can't fix it if more people don't know it's a problem." So that's what led to it, but it was more than that. It was like, there are other people going through different struggles and different departments in other companies, in other industries, and what does that look like? And that's why I ended up talking to, you know, two black women in the spirits industry. The spirits industry is dominated by older white men. And these are two, you know, 30-something-year-old black women with their own spirits, and they're Christian, and so that was one of the things where I told the editor, "I don't know where you want to put them. Do you want to put them in race or gender or religion?" But yeah, they've had people ask them in their church, like, "What are you doing? This is wrong" They've had people talk to them in the spirits industry, like, "Hey, girl, do you know what you're doing?" You know, they get it on all levels, and then I was talking to [Rabya?]. She's fantastic. She's the woman who did the defense for [?] in... what is the name of the podcast? I'm blanking now. That's terrible. Serial, and she talked about being, you know, a woman, being Muslim, wearing a hijab, and people--she knows she's a good attorney, but people would want her to write the briefs and do the background work but not show up in court. Zach: It's interesting, 'cause that's the kind of stuff--there's a pattern of that, right? Of exploiting black labor or using black folks' thought capital, wringing them dry for it, only for you to then take center strage and publicity and really interface, right? like, you see it--I'm sure that you've--'cause you've [?] in tech. Like, you've been with StubHub and Facebook. Like, you've been all over the place, right? Like, you've seen where, like, a lot of times black folks will come from, like, these HBCUs or, like, with these engineering degrees and then, like, work in the back in security. Security, y'all, is not--like, not tech security. Securing the building. Anyway. [?, both laugh]Bärí: I will tell you the funniest thing to me when I got to Facebook was it was 2014--Facebook started in 2004, so it was 10 years afterward. I was the first black woman in legal. There weren't black people in legal, so I was the first black person and the first black woman. There were no AKAs at all in the company, so I was the first AKA in the company. They had no Links in the company. I was the first Link in the company. Like, what are you doing? Like, if you want a highly qualified workforce, Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority Incorporated will get that done for you, The Links, Incorporated will get that done for you. And there were only, like, three Deltas in the entire company.Zach: Shout-out to my sorority sisters. What's up, y'all? You know, and my mom is also an AKA, but you're really repping. Like, you really got on this podcast and, like, inserted that plug. I respect that. I like that a lot. Bärí: You know, plug plug plug, but that's the thing that I wanted people to understand too was, like, if you want a highly qualified workforce--and yes, they may not have direct, on-point experience, but we all have analogous experience from doing this non-profit work, and that's the thing that people discount or don't see. So, like, you want to hire Brad in accounting and he, like, did an internship for two months at his dad's firm. Like, what do you value?Zach: Right? Well, when you start holding them accountable--so when you hold them accountable to the standards that they give you, right? So if you say, well, "You know, you don't really have X, Y and Z. Show me somebody else who does have X, Y and Z experience." Bärí: Yeah, show me what's comparable. Zach: Yeah, and they pull 'em up and it's like, "Yo, this person was... he was, like, a DJ, or he worked at a GNC. Like, what are you talking about?" And so then things just crumble because it's like, "This is not about this." Like, you're creating rules--Bärí: Yeah. Like, that's not really what you want, and that's fine, but, like, let's call a thing a thing.Zach: I think, again, it just fits the meta narrative of white people, like, creating new rules for marginalized people. Bärí: Well, it's something that I actually told a long bost and said, like, every time I hit the benchmark, you move the goal posts. Are you aware of that? And he was like, "What are you saying?" And I said, "What I'm saying is what I said." Zach: I just said it, first of all.Bärí: Yeah. Like, child, when I tell--and that's the thing, like, my mom should've never told me I should advocate, because I literally said, I was like, "No. I hit this benchmark, and you told me if I did this it would be that. If I did X, it would be Y, but now you're saying, "Hm, but in order to get to Y you really need to do--" And I was like, "Nah, bruh. You said this, and I have it in writing." And I did that. So now what are we doing? And he was like, "Why are you so angry?"Zach: What do you mean?Bärí: I was like, "What do you mean? I'm not angry. I'm just telling you this is what you said and now you're going back on it," and he's like, "But you're angry," and I said, "I'm not angry. I'm just holding you accountable, and maybe you're not used to that, but that's also not my job. Like, that, you should go home and talk to your mom or your wife about that."Zach: But you know what though? Like, just as a thought exercise, let's just say I am angry. Okay. Bärí: Then what?Zach: Then what? I am angry, because you said you were gonna do something and you didn't, or you said it was gonna be one way and it isn't, or I have written documentation and you're gaslighting me by acting like this isn't real. So yeah, maybe I am angry. Does that make my point less valid?Bärí: And it doesn't. Like, these are stories that people go through in the book about how people gaslight them in the same way, whether it's about them being a woman or about them being black or about them being LGBTQ. There is such a powerful story in there from a woman who's Asian who talks about, like, how her family essentialy made her feel like she had to whitewash herself to be successful, and then when she got to college it was like, "I don't know how to relate to Asian people now." And then when she got in the workplace she's like, "Now I have to relate to both, and how does that work?" I mean, that's real. Like, you know, how you're socialized is how you end up projecting yourself to the world.Zach: That's right, unknowingly or unknowingly, and that's the scary part, right? Like, you end up doing this thing, like, where you're raised. You're just growing up. Like, you're raised a certain way, and then you hit the real world and you realize like, "Dang, I have a lot of internalized depression and, like, I didn't even know that." Bärí: Mm-hmm, and that is--that honestly is one of the--it's funny, 'cause my son, he's now 9-and-a-half, but when I had to finish this book towards the middle of October, I was so tired. When I tell you, child, on the last day before I had to hit the bit I was like, "Ugh." I stopped to watch, like, a Real Housewives marathon, and he came to me. He was like, "What are you doing?" And I was like, "Excuse you?" And he said, "Mommy, what are you doing?" And I said, "I'm taking a break." And he's like, "Are you done yet?" And I said, "Do you understand what break means?" And he was like, "Well, you let me take a break, but you give me a time. Like, you've been watching this for, like, three hours. Have you hit Send?" And I was like, "No, I haven't," and he's like, "Okay, so then you get one more hour and then you need to finish." But to me, what I took that as was, like, he wasn't being defiant, he was actually imposing the rules that I put on him, which I was like, "Oh, so my parenting isn't totally failing."Zach: No, he has internalized that level of accountability and he is giving you that same energy back.Bärí: Yeah, but the same energy I had to give him was, like--I listen to so many stories about, you know, marginalized communities, interviewing these folks, particularly black men and their experiences, and you don't get to mess up, and I've told him that, and so he's like, "Why are you sitting here watching a Real Housewives marathon for three hours? You haven't pressed Send. Like, girl, get it done." And I was like, "Okay, yeah. You're right." But it's that same energy. Like, you have to be twice as good to get half as far, and that story was all of these people in the book, which was crazy, because it cuts across everything. It cuts across disability. It cuts across sexuality. It's like you have to make up for who you are by doing more work.Zach: You know, I think about a conversation we just had with Ruchika Tulshyan, and we were talking about how black men are often times left ot of the corporate D&I initiatives, right? So now, sometimes people think they're being really radical when they talk about "the angry black man." It's like, okay, I get it. That is a thing, and that's real, but, like, just the larger conversation about how black men are treated, and like you said, we don't have opportunities to mess up, and the same thing could be said for black women of course, for sure. It's just this idea of labor and, like, having to do more just to--Bärí: And you're not getting farther. It's just--Zach: Oh, my gosh. Thank you. It's like, "I'm not doing more to get further or to get farther ahead. I'm doing more just to be equal. I'm doing more just to receive what I've earned," right?Bärí: I can tell you, my husband, he interviewed at a former employer of mine. My husband is 6'6" and, like, 235 pounds on a good day.Zach: Oh, he's lean lean.Bärí: Eh... I said on a good day. [laughs] But the way that he's built though is, like, very Michael Phelps. So he's broad. So he looks bigger than he is, and the feedback that they had is--and also, because of his size and because he is black, he has been socialized--and also he's light as hell. Like, I've had people ask me multiple times, "Oh, so your husband's biracial?" No, he isn't, but people just assume that he is. And so based off of his profile, he's very light-skinned, he's 6'6", he's built like a swimmer, and people--so he has been socially conditioned to basically... I don't want to say tamp down who he would be, but he's more docile. Super reserved, which is why our dynamic works, because I'll be, like, the person in your face, and he'll--Zach: Yeah, it's tough to be big when--yeah, I've learned that in a variety of different ways, but yeah. I keep that--I would say I'm probably more like you, Bärí. I'm like, "Ayo," but I'm like, 6'2", like, 280, so I'm like, a big dude. [laughs]Bärí: And you know that scares people.Zach: And I'm not that--and I'm lighter-skinned, but I'm not, like, light-skinned, right? So it's like, you know.Bärí: And that is so scary for me with our son, because our son is--he is darker than I am, and I'm brown-skinned, and he's already 5 feet and he's 9. Zach: Yeah, he's gonna be a big boy.Bärí: Yeah, he will be. And I believe he'll be taller than his dad, and even if he isn't, it's like, if you are 6'6" and you're a brown-skinned boy and you're in Oakland, I have to keep you safe. And so everything I do is about "How do we keep you safe?" And that sucks, 'cause, like, I wish you could just be free, but--Zach: And it's not... and not even to be a super downer, but I say this as someone who, shoot, maybe by the time of this podcast my daughter's gonna be here, but, like, I think about having black kids in this world and, like, there's the physical safety, but then there's a certain level of, like, psychological safety that you really can't protect them from, and, like, there's certain things they're gonna just have to--again, I'm not trying to be fatalist or, like, super down or whatever, but they just have to go. They're just going to have to experience. And it's, like, the feeling of being isolated or alone or otherized or not quite fitting in spaces. Like, that's a thing, right? That's a thing, and somebody that I really admire--like, there are a bunch of folks I really admire, but I think about, like, Bomani Jones, right? Like, he's somebody I see, like, in these spaces, and he never, like--on his platforms, like, ever talks about being one of the onlys or whatever. And some people are just built like that. He's just like, "I don't really whatever." He doesn't come across, like, really vulnerable in that way, and I don't know--and this is not about Bo specifically, but I think about, like, other black men in media or, like, in these really big profile spaces, and I wonder, like, to be successful in these hyper-white spaces, do you just have to have, like, a certain level of just, like armor, and just almost be really calloused?Bärí: I think you do. That's one of the things also that I learned from doing interviews in the book, and that's not even unique to us. Like, the folks who are dealing with LGBTQ gender issues and gender expression, they had to deal with that in terms of, like, people questioning them and, like, what are you doing? Why are you doing that? Like, all of that stuff. And full discretion, like, I know Bo. Like, Bo and I are cool, and we've had that conversation, and part of it is like--to your point, it's not intentional. He doesn't mean to not say that. He just is like, "I am who I am, and you're gonna take it or you're not." And honestly, I've talked to him and have said, like, I want that energy for my son. I don't want him to feel like you have to have the burden of all black people ever on your back. Like, [?] does Bo, but he still reps us, and that's what I want, and that's what I want. Even, like, that I see with my husband. It's funny because I look at him--we're very, very different. He has had probably every advantage you can have in life. Like, he has gone to private school since he was born until he graduated. Like, he literally went to private pre-school, then he went to a private elementary school, private high school, he went to Harvard and then he went to Stanford, and I was like, "Bruh. You do not know, like, what it's like to live in, like, a real dorm." But he still came to--like, and he's from here too. He's from Oakland and came back and, like, tried to get in the valley and couldn't beat down the door. [Zach: Hm.] Right. And this is what everybody says that they want, right? These credentials. [Zach: Yeah, you know, he's checked every box.] And also, this is a light-skinned dude, right? So he's less-threatening. Zach: Right, and I'm sure he talks very proper. He enunciates his words well.Bärí: Child, I call him MC Carlton.Zach: So, like, literally his only knock is that he's black, and light black at that. Diet. [laughs]Bärí: Well, not even that. Also that was one of the things--so when I said my former... I had an employer who interviewed him. He got to the end of the round, and they decided that they didn't want him. They cut him. Like, they were hiring between him and one other person. They cut him because they said, "Oh, he didn't show enough passion. He wasn't willing to bang on tables." So when they gave me that--no, no, no, when they gave ME that feedback, I said, "Okay, so let's stop and envision this. Do you want a 6'6" 235-pound black man banging on tables? You're gonna be comfortable with that?" [Zach: And they said what?] They were like, "Well, what are you implying?" And I said, "I said what I said."Zach: Yeah, don't play with me. I'm not implying anything.Bärí: I said what I said. I didn't imply anything, I just said what I said. So if you saw that, you would feel safe? You would be cool? Zach: I mean, real talk. Would you? Answer the question.Bärí: They were like, "I mean, he just didn't show passion," and I was like, "That's not what I asked. What I asked was that if you saw a 6'6" bald black man banging a table to motivate engineers, you're cool with that?" And nobody could answer it definitively, and I was like, "And that's why you didn't hire him, so thank you, and I'ma go catch the shuttle." Like, I'm not gonna participate in this. This is bull. Zach: Yeah, this is ridiculous. It's super ridiculous.Bärí: 'Cause he's super reserved, and he's super reserved because he knows that he is a large black man and he can't do that. Zach: I remember I applied to--this is when I was first getting into consulting and it was between a few different firms, and one of the firms--and they were all, like, Big 4, right? So one of the firms I applied to, I went through the process and they said, "Oh, he was too passionate. He was too excited about the job. He smiled too much." So I'm just laughing at you, laughing at this situation, because it's like, okay, so you can't win for losing, right? I literally was the one smiling talking about how excited I was, and they said, "Well, he looked like he knew what he was doing, but he just seemed a little too smiley, a little too excited. He was a little too passionate for us." Bärí: But if he had been extra excited y'all would have been like, "Oh, my god. The black guy scared me because he's so big." [Zach: Exactly. [laughs]] And what I hate about this is, like, having to teach my son these rules of the road, because it's different in certain ways. He has my complex--actually he's darker than my complexion and he has his daddy's stature, and so you're gonna be extra targeted because you are a super brown boy and you're gonna be very tall, so you have to be on your P's and Q's at all times. Zach: Yeah, you're not wrong.Bärí: And he's so mad, because he does Kumon in addition to his regular schoolwork, and he's like, "Ugh, Mommy, I'm tired all the time," and I was like, "What do you think my life is? What do you think your daddy's life is? What do you think brown people's life is? Like, that's what it is, and like, I hate to tell you that, but you have to do more and do it faster and do it better, and you're gonna have to do it even faster and even better than your dad, because your dad gets some sort of benefit from having been, you know, a Harvard legacy, and he's light-skinned. Like, when you're light-skinned--light-skinnned [?] go farther, I'm sorry. It's true.Zach: We have yet to talk about colorism on the podcast, like, explicitly, but we need to talk about it because--Bärí: Let's talk about it. We can do it right now. [both laugh]Zach: I want to respect your time 'cause we went over, but nah, it's a global phenomenon, right? And I think, like, it goes beyond just, like, the African diaspora.Bärí: That's true. That's so true for our Indian comrades. That is very true for our Latinx comrades. Like, that's just the truth.Zach: I was in the HEB. HEB, for the folks who are not in Houston, is a huge grocer. So I was in HEB and I was getting some different, like, sauces and stuff, and I was in, like, the cultural food aisle and walked right on by some lightening cream. You know what I mean? So it's super common, and I think, like, even when you look at, like, these corporatized D&I groups, the Latinx folks are typically European--like, white-presenting, you know what I mean? Like, they're not, like--you don't see a lot of... again, it's common, but because it's so pervasive and--I don't want to say subtle, 'cause it's not subtle if you're paying attention, but it's just common, right? Like, the lighter-skinned people... it's hard to be dark and in power, you know? Bärí: Yeah, and that is for me just a personal thing that I want my son to embrace, and the reason being is, like, you know, everybody--my mom is light-skinned, and my dad was not, and they got divorced when I was three, so I don't even remember--like, I have no memory of living with them together, and so it was really my mom and her family, and everybody in her family is light-skinned and I'm the only brown person, and I was like, "What's going on here?" Yeah. But what's interesting here is my husband is light-skinned and I'm brown. Our daughter is lighter than my husband and our son is darker than me, so it's like... they don't match at all. [laughs] Zach: I love that y'all have, like, a whole kaleidoscope going though. Bärí: We do, and we actually have shirts. I have a whole shirt. Like, I need to send you one. It's real--it's ghetto. [laughs] It's a unicorn throwing money [?], and there are different shades of the unicorn, and I picked the different shades off the people in our family. So yeah, but I mean, like, get this money. Do this work. You can do it whatever shade you are. That's my point. But for him, I want him to understand there's gonna be different restrictions for you, because you're likely to walk out of here one day when you're sixteen and you're gonna be 6'6" and you're gonna be super brown, and you're really fine, and people need, you need, to be aware of the danger. And then opposite is like, "Your sister is light-skinned. She has very loose, curly hair, and so people are gonna treat her in a completely different manner and think she's fine even though she may not be, and--" Not that I'm saying she's not cute, she is, but I'm like, "You know, people--" Zach: Yeah, there's biases that come with being [?]. Yeah, there's a certain aesthetic that she could fit into that then makes it easier.Bärí: And she does, and I want to make sure that she doesn't buy into that and, you know, that's what we're dealing with her, and that's what I deal with in the book, like, how do you handle this? You have people in multiple categories. What are the proper terms? What are the issues that are around them? How do you deal with it? Like, even something as simple as the fact that I literally have never had braids or crochets or anything in my entire life, and I decided to get it last summer because I was tired of doing my hair and then my daughter's hair. And my daughter has a looser curl than I do, but her hair is thick. Like, I'm not spending three hours on a Sunday doing this, so I took her to the salon so that they could do it, and then I started getting crochets, but now she's like, "I want to go to the salon!" So now it's like, okay, now we have to reset in terms of privilege, right? Because everybody doesn't get to go to the salon. Like, my momma did my hair until I was 13, so holla at Grandma. [both laugh]Zach: So let's get back to this book, right? It's coming out March 31st. Eye-opening interviews. The goal is to help jumpstart conversations about identity, privilege and bias, y'all. The book is called Diversity in the Workplace. Listen, y'all, make sure you check it out. Right now, maybe because of that rona we might be having these conversations on Zoom or Skype. I don't--Bärí: Now, I think you're gonna be quarantined 'cause of that rona anyway, so you might as well read this while--Zach: You definitely should. You know what, why don't you challenge yourself?Bärí: And there's an audiobook version too if you don't even want to read it. Somebody can just read it to you. Zach: Come on, now. Like, challenge yourself to read the group, and then that way when you go back to work--Lord say the same, the rona won't be here forever, okay? So you eventually will have to go see people, right?Bärí: I mean, the rona won't. It will be replaced by something else.Zach: Oh, goodness. You're right though.Bärí: I mean... it's Trump, so...Zach: Yeah, that's true. [laughs] Bärí: Something else might kill us in the meantime, I don't know.Zach: Who knows? I don't know. They said they got all these locusts over in Africa. There's, like, hundreds of billions of them over there. I don't know.Bärí: I saw that too, and I was like, "What disease are they carrying?"Zach: Listen. Bärí: Okay, I'ma let that go. Zach: Shutter the thought. [laughs] So look, y'all, this has been Living Corporate. We do this, right? We have conversations. We're really excited and we're thankful--you know, all jokes aside, please make sure you're washing your hands, okay? We have information from the CDC in the show notes. You know, hopefully you're washing your hands as you listen to this podcast. Like, wash your hands, okay? Soap is important also. Now--Bärí: Very. Water is not--Zach: Water is not soap. I want to--hold on. Sound Man, put that little record scratch in here. [record scratch] Water is not soap, okay? So you want to use some--you know, use the hard, industrial stuff. Use that Irish Spring if you need to. I personally use [?] because I am bougie, but you can use--Bärí: I use Olay, but, you know, whatever.Zach: Use something that is frankly a little abrasive, okay? Get that first, like, half-layer off your skin. Like, wash your hands, y'all. And then, you know, just take care of yourself, you know? Fist bumps and head nods only. You know, this would actually be a good opportunity for allyship and learning.Bärí: Well, here's the thing. So even with the fist bumps... so with the social distancing blah-blah-blah, it's supposed to be six feet. If you bump into someone, no, you're not within the six feet.Zach: You know what, you're right, no fist bumps. So this would be a good time actually for those--Bärí: Head nod at people and wave.Zach: So we all know how to do a head nod, but this may be the time for my less-melanated folks, my aspiring allies, to learn how to effectively head nod. Don't throw your neck out of your body when you do it. Bärí: Oh, I didn't know that was a thing.Zach: Just nodding too hard, right? Like, the head nod is supposed to be subtle, nuanced. Right? Like, maybe it's a cultural thing. I feel like in the South, like, our head nod is different, and I definitely believe, between the various melanin levels, head nods can be various levels of aggression. That's all. That's all I mean. Maybe a little salute also, with two fingers at the head. Just "Hello, I see you over there." But just be careful. Take care of yourselves, and we'll get through this together. In the meantime, make sure y'all check out the links in the show notes as well for Diversity in the Workplace: Eye-Opening Interviews to Jumpstart Conversations about Identity, Privilege and Bias written by Bärí A. Williams. Until next time, y'all, this has been Zach. Peace.

Zach chats with Ruchika Tulshyan, award-winning author & CEO and founder of Candour, about equity's place in the future of work. Ruchika explains to us what it is about the diversity, equity and inclusion space that had her commit so much of her life to it, and she ties her breadth of experience back to her childhood in Singapore, where she grew up with people of all different nationalities, cultures and religions. She takes us through her career journey and graciously shares her struggles and triumphs along the way.Connect with Ruchika on LinkedIn, Twitter and Instagram.Visit her personal website. You can find out more about Candour by clicking here.Check out Ruchika's Harvard Business Review contributor page and get reading!Read the pieces mentioned in the show, If You Don't Know How to Say Someone's Name, Just Ask and Women of Color Get Asked to Do More “Office Housework.” Here’s How They Can Say No.Learn more about the books Superior and So You Want to Talk About Race.Visit our home page!TRANSCRIPTZach: What's up, everybody? It's Zach with Living Corporate. That's right. I'm back. It's probably Tuesday, or maybe you're listening to this later. It's, like, a Wednesday or a Thursday. I don't know, but we're recording this, and we're recording this, of course, we're having real talk in a corporate world. We center and amplify underrepresented voices in the corporate space, and by corporate space I just mean at work, okay? So this is not, like, an elitist thing, right? So, like, if you work at Wendy's, hey, this is for you too, okay? If you work at Goldman Sachs, this is for you too. And you're probably a white man listening to this, and if so, hey, man, thank you for listening to the podcast. I hope that you learn something from this. But this is for everybody is my point, and we do this, we amplify and center underrepresented experiences, by having underrepresented folks--these are, like, influencers, journalists, activists, educators, public servants, entrepreneurs, executives, recruiters, anybody, really, who is able to really come on and just have some real talk with us. And we've had some amazing guests every single week. I mean, every single week we have some fire--I mean, fire fire fire guests, and this week is no different, okay? 'Cause you know who--I don't even know if y'all know who we have, but I'm up about to tell you. We have Ruchika Tulshyan. Ruchika is a diversity & inclusion strategist, award-winning author and journalist. She is the author of "The Diversity Advantage: Fixing Gender Inequality In The Workplace," a book on strategies for organizations to advance women. Ruchika's company, Candour advises a number of organizations on diversity, equity and inclusion strategy. Ruchika is also the 2019 inaugural distinguished professional-in-residence for Seattle University's communication department. Ruchika, hold on. I've gotta let the air horns fly. How are you doing?Ruchika: I am doing very well, Zach. I'm so excited to be here. [children cheering sfx, both laugh] I love it, I love it. I really do.Zach: We gotta get into it. We gotta get into. You're an author, a journalist, an international speaker, and a CEO of your own consulting firm. Like, what is it about this space, about this diversity, equity and inclusion space, that had you commit so much of your life to it?Ruchika: You know, it wasn't planned at all, Zach. And I grew up outside the United States. I'm from Singapore originally, so I think about food all the time. In fact, right now while I'm talking I'm thinking about "What's my next meal?" But--Zach: What's your favorite food?Ruchika: So, you know, being from Singapore, we eat everything, but probably anything Asian, anything with noodles or rice. I can eat rice for breakfast, lunch, dinner, supper, snack, midnight snack. [laughs] You get the drift.Zach: Yes. No, I do. So do you like pad thai?Ruchika: I'll never order it in the United States 'cause I've had it in Thailand quite a few times now.Zach: Oh, my gosh. What it is like in Thailand?Ruchika: It's so different. It's not sweet. It's just--it's got this beautiful... it's like umami, you know? Like, there's a different flavor altogether. So yeah, I haven't--you know, I tried it once or twice in the U.S. in different cities, and I was like, "Yeah, this is not going to be the thing for me."Zach: You know, it's interesting that you say that, because I remember--so I went to Japan. I was in Japan for a couple weeks last year--well, in 2018--and I remember just eating the food there. It's like--it's crazy that, like, most Americans don't have all of their toes cut off from diabetes with how much sugar we have in our food, right?Ruchika: Yes, yes, yes. And that's--I mean, I could talk about this all day, because, you know, I think about this all the time. And again, I think it's all related, right? And I think even talking about diversity and inclusion, like, really understanding people, finding a common language based on food I think is something that's really special and a very, very important way to connect with people.Zach: You know, I 100% agree. And just one last thing about the food, 'cause you talked about, like, when you have something in the States and then you--for me, 'cause I'm from here and, like, all my people, as far as I can go back, are from here, right? But when I went to Japan I had sushi in Japan. I said, "Wait a second." [laughing] Ruchika: Right? Isn't it completely different?Zach: I said, "What?" I just was--I mean, I had, like, a spiritual moment. It was just like, [blessings come in sfx, both laugh]. I said, "My gosh, my taste buds." Ruchika: Isn't it? And all their food, everything. I mean, if you've had chocolate in Japan, if you've had, like, cookies in Japan, if you've had a cake in Japan, it's like nothing you've ever tasted before, you know?Zach: Yes, and I'm just--and how conditioned I've been eating here, it's like--I'm used to, like, if I eat something, like, a big meal, I'm used to be a little--like, a little sleepy afterwards, right? So I'm like, "Wait, why can I still walk? I can still walk around and, like, think cognitively after eating this meal. [?]" Okay, so I'm sorry. Long segue aside about food--but it's important though. It's a connection to culture. I'm right there with you. Ruchika: So we were talking about diversity and inclusion, right? [both laugh] And how did I get into it? Well, you know, it's connected. You know, it is connected. So I think I was kind of built for this in some way, although it wasn't planned. So growing up in Singapore, I just grew up with people of all different nationalities, all different cultures, all different religions, and it was very much a way of my life, and I moved around quite a bit when I was younger. But what it really exposed me to was the fact that, you know, at the end of the day we're all the same, you know? In many ways we want the same things. We really, really just want to be happy. We want to be heard. We want to feel valued and respected. And so I really grew up with that concept, you know, as a part of my life, just the way it was. You know, my friends were from all over the world, my teachers were from all over the world, and I really grew up with sort of an idealistic, almost Kumbaya sort of belief in the world, and when I moved to the United States about eight years ago, that was a very big shock for me, you know? And I really saw what I still think in some ways is modern-day segregation. You know, I really saw it in full force. There's a stat that three out of four white Americans don't have a single friend of color, and I think that's really concerning, because I grew up in a very different sort of environment, and it really made me see the--it's awesome. I mean, just talking about food, you know? Being exposed to different cultures, different types of food. I feel so lucky, and I actually think people are missing out, and so for a vast majority of Americans, the most diversity they ever experience is actually in the workplace. So, you know, I'm sort of setting myself up to saying that, you know, that was the early part of my life where I really felt, you know--I just had a connection, but I never thought that I would work in this field. I didn't even know this field existed. And what changed for me is I began my career as a journalist and was really happy about it, loved it, then moved to Seattle and sort of transitioned into tech, because that's what everyone does here, and it was the most challenging experience of my life, you know? I really encountered sexism and racism that I just wasn't--you know, I didn't think that it could happen to me. You know, I really grew up with the mindset that you work hard, you work smart, you put your head down and you do your thing--and sure, you know, you raise your hand for opportunities, you're confident, et cetera, but I really didn't think that it would make a difference, you know? My gender, my race, sort of the way I scope, my accent, my name. I didn't think these things mattered, right? I know, so naive of me now that I reflect back on it. And it was a very rude, painful emotional awakening and really kind of created that empathy in me where I said to myself, "This cannot be the way that more than half the population is being treated in the workplace, right? And these are their experiences," and as a journalist I started collecting experiences. I started collecting stories and case studies and even data, right, and research, and it was very clear that something had to change. So I wrote in my book, five years ago, at a time where people said, like, the way that women can, you know, advance in the workplace is they need to lean in, right? That was sort of the narrative of the day, that it was something lacking in women, there was something lacking in people of color, and they had to change, and I'm really glad that we're thinking about this as a systems change that actually doesn't--you know, if you have been stereotyped against, if you have had--you know, if people have this preconceived narrative about who you are and what your potential is in the workplace, it doesn't matter how much you lean in, you know? I mean, like my friend Minda Harts says--you know, CEO of The Memo and has an awesome book out on it, on [?] of women of color at work, Zach. I know you know her. It doesn't matter how hard you lean in if you're a woman of color. You are just not going to be able to get ahead until those systemic biases have been addressed, and so that's what got me into this work, and it's a long-winded answer.Zach: It's long-winded. This is a podcast. [both laugh] But no, you're absolutely right. I'm right there with you, right? And it's interesting, when you talk about, like, systemic versus, like, individual actions--I'll say for me, it's been frustrating, like, just transparently, like, being a black man in majority-white spaces. And I'm in, like--I'm in professional services, right? So consulting, and a lot of times when there's issues that come up when you're dealing with folks or people want to frame you as being "angry" or "frustrated" or whatever the case is, like, whatever trope you want to kind of pull out, right, and then you share those frustrations with, like, other people who are not underrepresented, who are a member of the majority, their feedback or coaching is often, like, things that you need to do and change, but it's like, "Yeah, that's not really the problem." And not to be arrogant. We all have places where we can grow and mature, and emotional intelligence and social intelligence and personal awareness, all of those things are very important. At the same time, like, have the moral courage to actually talk about the systems at play and how there are a lot of things that really aren't our fault. Like, there are things that are being done to us or that we are--you know, it's asymptomatic of larger systemic challenges, and it's tough though. It's tough to have those conversations, especially for folks in the majority. Some of them literally just don't know how. Some of them it's just so uncomfortable they don't--you know, how much of that is real? How much of that is, like, you imagining it, right? But to me I'm just noticing more and more--like, I'm getting increasingly discouraged when you have these conversations, you know, and it's like, "Yo, can we just have a conversation about, like, why is it that this person constantly calls this person or these types of people too opinionated or loud or aggressive or angry or--" Whatever the case is, right? Like, you kind of see it over time. And it's funny that you bring that up about Minda Hart. Shout-out to Minda Hart. What's up, Minda? In fact, hold on. I'ma get some air horns for you and Minda. [both laugh] So what you're speaking to about leaning in, right, and how the concept of leaning in, it was promoted by a white woman with--and I recall there being major articles written and, like, championed about the fact that women of color can't lean in, exactly what you just said, and so I'm curious, when you talk about your focus on gender equity, what does that look like, and how are you introducing intersectionality within the concept of gender equity? Like, how does that practically show up for you in the work that you do?Ruchika: So Zach, let me tell you one of the biggest career mistakes I ever made in my life, and that was to write a book that overall lacks intersectionality. And my students will tell you this, because I make the poor things read my book for one of my classes. And so, you know, every class we have this discussion about, you know, the fact that my book lacks intersectionality as well as that it really treats gender as a binary, right? Which is fully my fault and also a big part of the larger system of publishing and editing, et cetera, where that, you know, concept of intersectionality is still lacking, right? And I don't know--even right now, I don't know if management theory has really caught up to the fact that you really need to have a very intersectional approach when you think about gender equality, right? Like, it is not just about the challenges that white women face. It is really about--if you really want to make change, it is about looking at the intersection between how women of color, both those intersections, experience the workplace, and then especially, from there, expanding that to include other marginalized identities in the workplace. So I will be the first to admit that my book lacks intersectionality, and my hope is, in all the work I've done since and will continue to do, I absolutely cannot--you know, I absolutely cannot take an intersectional approach. That being said, I really think, again, the key to making a difference when it comes to workplace gender equity is having a situation where the voice of the person who is the most marginalized in the room is centered so that the workplace works for all, right? So if the workplace was built by, say, a cis-hetero white man and that's who the workplace is built for, if you do not consider the experience of what, you know, a woman of color, a black woman for example, a trans black woman of color, what's the experience, you know? And who may have, you know, disabilities, cognitive, temporary, physical, whichever--or a combination. If you do not start there, then you're going to continue perpetuating systems which alienate, you know, women, and especially women of color across the board, you know what I mean? So you really need to start with the person who's the most vulnerable who is having really the most challenging experiences in the workplace and then expand from there and think about "What is it that they need to be successful," right? And how can that be incorporated into the fabric of what you do? And that's why part of what I love to do, I love speaking to large corporations. We just talked about someone who works at a large corporation who we both know, but really for me the--you know, I also really love working with smaller teams and startups, because when you can build intersectionality, when you can build inclusion and equity into the very fabric of your organization, right, when you're building it from, like, one to five to ten to twenty employees, that is where you can really make a change, and I have seen that happen personally.Zach: You know what? So first of all, you know what I'm saying, like, while you were talking I didn't want to cut you off, but in my mind when you said--when you, like, owned up and you said, "My book does not address intersectionality," I was like [record scratch sfx]. 'Cause I was like, "Wow, that's incredible, because everybody--" I want everybody to stop. Stop what you're doing. You're driving your car, you're doing whatever you're doing--especially you, diversity, equity and inclusion supposed subject matter experts--stop and see what Ruchika just did, okay? I asked her a question, a direct question about a very important concept if you want to consider yourself a diversity, equity and inclusion expert. You see what she didn't do? She didn't get all defensive and fragile. She outright owned something that she didn't do and her commitment to improve in the future. Some of y'all need to learn from that. I'm talking to you. Yes. If you think I'm talking to you, I'm talking to you, okay? Shout-out to you. That was dope. Ruchika: Thank you.Zach: You're absolutely welcome.Ruchika: And listen, I'm not--you know, I don't at all claim to be perfect by any stretch of the imagination, and I do want to double-down on this point. Like, I've said it before, and I'm gonna say it again. I think growing up both outside this country as well as sort of in some way out of, you know, sort of the Western way of living has meant that I have had to approach DEI in the United States with a tremendous amount of humility and a learning mindset, right? I mean, in the country I grew up in, gay marriage is not legalized, right? I didn't have any friends growing up who were out. The first time I actually came in contact with someone who was openly gay, for example, would have been sometime in my 20s. You know, openly, right? So what I'm trying to say is that you can have been brought up a certain way. The people you love may believe that, for example, having friends of different colors or treating people from different backgrounds equally, maybe you grew up thinking that's not the way life should be, but my point is you can grow. My point is you can learn, my point is that it takes a tremendous amount of humility and learning to get to that place, and you absolutely can get there.Zach: Amen. No, I agree, and I think we're coming into an era where people are just getting, like, less and less tolerant of, like, corporatized nonsense, right? So, like, there's going to need to be, eventually, some sort of reckoning with, like, the systems at play. In fact, we're in a unique position because it's an election year where we almost have kind of, like, a countdown. We know one way or the other there's going to be an--like, there's going to be another explosion, and there are going to be more and more people supposedly very surprised all over again, but I think--I also think that just, like, societally and generationally, like, we also have folks and younger folks who weren't able to vote who saw the nonsense last time but weren't in the same position who are in a different position this time. So I just think that the--I think that the dialogue is going to still be just as present if not more present than it was in 2016, so the imperative to really--like, to your point about humility and being willing to learn, centering the most vulnerable and continuing to seek to grow and develop yourself in this space is important, because I just don't think that some of the trends that I saw in this, like, environment over the last decade I don't think is gonna be sustainable this upcoming decade.Ruchika: It isn't. And you know, Zach, while you were talking I was thinking of this idea. You know, coming to this country as an immigrant, my experience was definitely steeped in and very much the way that I was told that I would be successful in this country was to uphold white supremacy, right? And I have to acknowledge that for us to really make a change, we need to address anti-blackness in a lot of immigrant communities, including the ones I'm part of, south Asian primarily. And I think it's very important to really drill down into that a little bit more, you know? And if we do want to see a change, even in the workplace, you know, I work with tech companies, and there's a lot of, like, "Oh, we don't have a problem with people of color. Like, there are a lot of Asians doing really well in our tech company." I've had leaders write to me--I used to write a column for a supplement of the Seattle Times, and I had people all the time from large tech companies being like, "Oh, but our CEO is a person of color." "Oh, but our," you know, whatever it is, you know, "Our top people are people of color," and I really had to stop and say, "Listen, it's not about people who are already represented in the workforce. If you really want to make a change, can you tell me how many black people are leading at this company? Can you tell me how many black [?] people [?]?"Zach: Ooooooooh, goodness gracious, Ruchika. What you talking about? [laughs]Ruchika: You know, how many indigenous women, for example, are [?] at your company? Then let's talk about equity.Zach: Well, 'cause we're not a monolith. And you're absolutely right, right? There's this idea--and there's terms that we use, and, you know, this is the thing. Living Corporate is a positive space, you know? If we make any, like, direct statement--we have real talk, but, like, we're not--you know, we're not trying to be overly mad all the time, right? [both laugh] As hard as it is, but, like, one thing that grinds my gears is, like, people using the term "people of color" when we're really talking about specific underrepresented groups. Like, let's actually name and give those groups the respect--like, because if you say black people, that's already a very complex group. So, like, let's at least say--if we're talking about black people, let's just say black people. If we're talking about south Asians, let's say south Asians. But, like, when we say people of color, it's like--you know, I don't know if you have it, but every black person who's listening to this podcast knows what I'm talking about. You have a junk drawer in your house? It has, like, nails and, like, batteries and everything in there, right? Ketchup packets. And that's really what "people of color" is, it's just a junk drawer term. We're just gonna throw--if you're not eggshell white you're a person of color, right? And it's like, how do we break out of that? And so let me ask you this then. When you ask those follow-up questions and you start asking them to be specific, you know, and you ask, like, "Well, how many of this particular group do you have?" Then what does the conversation--what does that shift look like in conversation?Ruchika: Most people are tremendously uncomfortable and don't want to engage, right? And that's also--I'm happy to get off this topic because then I can talk all day, but part of it is the terminology and the language is flawed. In the same way "people of color" is flawed, so is "Asians." [?] Indians and Indian-Americans, you know, capture some of the highest income groups in this country, but in the same category of south Asians--just if you look at the south Asian subcontinent--[Bangladeshi?] immigrants have the lowest rates of poverty, some of the lowest rates of poverty in this country. So what I'm saying is already the terminology that we use to describe, you know, race is extremely flawed. And by the way, I'd like to shout-out to a book that I'm reading that I love already. It's called Superior by Angela Saini. She's a British science journalist. I'm actually part of the team bringing her out to Seattle to speak at our university here. And I just love this book, because it really dives into how race science came about and the very flawed logic that is being used to show that there are differences biologically between the races--which, by the way, she argues very, very well, using tons and tons of data and research to show that that's absolutely not true, [that?] race is a social categorization and we absolutely must acknowledge the experience of different people socially because of, you know, these categorizations. Biologically, there really aren't that many differences. And so I think my point--you know, I'm gonna go off on a tangent here, but people don't want to engage because we are so comfortable with this idea, "Oh, no. Let's not talk about race." That's a very interesting thing that I've really noticed here in the United States. In fact, I did some of my tertiary education in the United Kingdom, and then I, as I mentioned, grew up in Singapore and moved around quite a bit. What I found is that really in the United States, people don't want to talk about race, and as a result of not talking about race, they uphold racism, you know? It's just--it's baffling to me, it really is, and I think if you can't address it--and, you know, I've now moved to Seattle, which is really--you know, another shout-out, my friend Ijeoma Oluo's book So You Want to Talk About Race. Excellent book. I highly recommend it to every single person out there. Amazing. I make my class read it every year, and they're so grateful. After my boring book they go to her book and they're so grateful. You should see the evaluation papers. They're like, "[?] boring." [laughs] But my point is without us really naming and owning some of the huge systemic barriers we've had in the workplace, I think we're just gonna let the status quo run, and I think you have to be brave enough to get super uncomfortable and address those challenges.Zach: You know, and it's interesting you say that, right? And of course I agree. It leads me to the next question I have, which is recently Goldman Sachs announced that they won't be taking companies public without at least one diverse board member, and then they went on to emphasize gender diversity. My first question is do you think that this is substantive, and then two, or Part B to that, do you believe black and brown men are largely excluded from DEI initiatives, and if so, why?Ruchika: Okay, so firstly do I think that it's substantive? I don't think so, not at all. I think actually the word diverse--like, I think "diverse board member" already is just problematic. And here's another shout-out. You know, Aubrey Blanche talks about how you cannot--the word "diverse person" is actually problematic. Like, there's no such thing as a diverse person, right? [?] a white person is diverse, right? So diverse itself, you know, like, back to language, like, name what you mean, and what you mean here is "underrepresented," right? Like, that's what Goldman Sachs meant by one diverse board member. What they meant was underrepresented or underestimated. [?], but underestimated board member is what they were talking about, right? So already that training is problematic. And I think if you emphasize gender diversity, I really think you're missing the boat, right? Are female founders underrepresented and underestimated? Absolutely, right? But here's real talk. In the Fortune 500, 19% of the C-Suite is made up of white women. Only 4% is made up of women of color, right? So if you're really talking about systemic change, if you're talking about not trying to go through the same systems that are already in place, then you really have to look at race. Without that intersectionality, without actually naming that not only do we mean one board member from a underrepresented background in terms of gender but also race, you're just really perpetuating the problem, right? So I think that--I just think they didn't go far enough. I like the idea. I like what they're trying to say. And we also know that in many, many cases, white women do perpetuate similar systems of patriarchy, right? If you talk to any woman of color in the world, she has a story for you about that.Zach: It's so interesting that you say that, right? Because I really want to talk about the role that white women play in upholding--not only upholding white supremacy, but also ironically--or unironically--patriarchy as well, right? And so it's like, what--I think there's more research and work to be done, and/or I'd love to just bring on more folks to just really deep dive into that subject, because I think it's worth discussing. I think that it's--as a black, straight man, I benefit from patriarchy, and I have my own privileges. I do believe that white women sit in a very unique position in America, or just in the world in general, in that they are an oppressed group but also heavily benefit from white supremacy, and so it's just curious. And you're absolutely right, I've talked to plenty of women, black and brown women, who have their own experiences and frustrations, and I've seen them as well. I've seen oppression in action at work. But I do find it to be an underdiscussed topic. I know that there are articles and things out there. I still just think there's many more conversations we could have around it. I'm curious as to what's gonna need to happen for us to, like, just more unabashedly address the topic head on though.Ruchika: Absolutely, and I think it's, again, that being comfortable with getting really uncomfortable, because I think so much of, again, sort of the leftover of workplaces that were designed for and have been sort of continued on by white men, I think it's very much like you don't talk politics at work, you don't--you don't bring your sort of real, authentic self to work, and we know that that's changing with the next generation. I did want to answer your question about black and brown men largely being excluded from DEI initiatives. I do think so. I think black and brown men are--I think they do face some very specific and very, very difficult challenges. From a research standpoint, they--you know, we know research can always be flawed, but McKinsey's Women in the Workplace study, their report--I in fact have it in front of me--shows that, at entry-level, men of color represent 16% of entry-level jobs in corporations, and when it comes to the C-Suite, that's down to 9%, where with women of color it's 17% at entry-level and 4% in the C-Suite. So we know that, you know, while there's a huge underrepresentation of men of color, the percentage of underrepresentation of women of color relative to how many actually enter the workforce is really stark, right? Like, a quarter versus closer to half. So my point here is I think when you look at the data, you know, I can see why perhaps the experiences of men of color are sometimes left out and excluded from DEI initiatives. I do think it's a very, very important part of--again, if you really want to make substantial change, you do have to include them. The only other way, again academically, I've looked at this is what I've found is that when you address the two historically most underestimated identities in the workplace, right, or historically lower-status identities--and that's gender and race, so women of color--that's where you can really make a big difference, because if you look at white women, they benefit from, you know, one high status, the [?] of being white, but one low status, and for men of color it's patriarchy. You benefit from it. So I think there's this--I think it's a very delicate dance, but do I think we should build corporate diversity initiatives without including the experience of men of color? Absolutely not. I think again you will miss out, and again you're gonna leave things out that really are crucial to making sustainable change.Zach: So you speak about change and you talk about, like, the future. You know, it's curious, 'cause as millennials--as we've entered the workforce, you know, there was this collective anticipation from thought leaders around "Okay, yo, watch out, 'cause millennials about to shake it up. We about to cause a ruckus, you know? It's about to be crazy over here," and there was a lot of that talk. I'm curious, you know, how have you seen that in the work that you do practically, the infusion of the millennial generation, and then what, if any, shifts do you anticipate as Generation Z comes into the workforce in the next decade?Ruchika: You know, I don't really 100% know how to answer this honestly. I mean, I teach students who are at the sort of cusp of millennial, Gen Z, and it's really amazing to see, you know? They're very, very different, at least in the sense of being at least aware of some of the huge problems we see in the world today. I mean, they're the people most impacted by climate change, for example. And I do see that there is a very early understanding of social justice and why this is important, and that really gives me a lot of hope, right? You know, when I taught five years ago, my students weren't that socially justice-minded in the way that they are right now. So already in five years I'm starting to see a huge change. At the same time, I think, again, they're inheriting systems that were built with patriarchy and white supremacy at the core of them. So what's interesting and exciting to see is many reject that, and they're starting their own businesses, they're doing their own thing, they're in their own side hustles and their side gigs, and that's really interesting, and that's a very important part of the change of the future of work. At the same time, I think without addressing those systems of oppression, you are still gonna find many millennials who will continue to co-opt into them for many reasons, right? I mean, this is the generation that's the most financially insecure in close to a century, and they're really, really struggling with a lot of the mistakes that the generations before them made, and so I think that there's no perfect answer for this. I think what I will say is that it's exciting to see at least the data showing that millennials and Gen Z really care deeply about, you know, working in a place where they can live out their values, and they would actually--a significant portion of them would actually rather take lower pay than work for a place where their values don't align, and that's really exciting. That is a very different way of looking in the workplace. And again, maybe sometimes--I mean, I'm a millennial. Maybe I wouldn't be doing the work I'm doing if I was not a millennial, right? Like, maybe I would have had that terrible experience in tech and I would have been like, "Well, you know, this is just the way that it is, and life's like that, and I need to continue." And I just want to admit that there's tremendous privilege in me being able to do that. I mean, I talk to immigrant women whose ability to live in this country is tied to working for a job no matter how toxic it is, right? I talk to many, many, many people who have had to continue working in workplaces that were terrible for their mental health, terrible for their health in general, and they just had to, right? For a variety of financial reasons, health insurance, et cetera. So I do want to acknowledge that.Zach: So let's do this. Let's talk a little bit about you, right? You have so much going on, and so I just want to make sure that we really give you space for you to share what you're excited about this year and just what you're focused on.Ruchika: Thank you. Indeed, I do a lot. I don't like to talk about myself, but I will say my goal for myself this year is to do a lot more speaking based on some of the topics that I care about, and, you know, it's really inspirational when I'm able to address a room of people, and I've had people come up to me and say, "Thank you so much. This is the first time our leader has heard about unconscious bias and the experience of women of color," or "This is the first time we've actually had language around what diversity, equity and inclusion means, and thank you for saying the things that you've said." So I think part of my goal for this year is just to continue being a very vocal advocate for women of color, for people of color in the workplace, keeping an intersectional lens when it comes to, you know, diversity efforts. So that's something I definitely want to do. I do write for Harvard Business Review, and my hope is to do a lot more work for them as the year comes along. I would like to share one article with you, Zach. Actually there are two. One that I'm really, really proud of is one I wrote very recently about why it's important to pronounce people's name correctly. I know I have a challenging name and an unfamiliar name in this country, and it really makes all the difference if you think about inclusion, and as time goes on this absolutely includes people's pronouns and other sort of very subtle ways of making sure that you include people, and one of the easiest ways is to make an effort to get their name right. And so it sounds so simple, and it makes all the difference, because my name, 9 out of 10 times, is mispronounced. Like, even when I pronounce it correctly for people, they don't want to listen, and I think that is something that really needs to change. So there's that. The other is I really hope to continue writing about and speaking about topics that, like, generally we don't easily talk about, and for me one of those is talking about office housework. So a couple of years ago I wrote an article about how women of color are asked to do more office housework, right? So this means all the non-glamorous work. It can be actually, you know, correlated to housework, like, you know, ordering lunch, doing the dishes, whatever it is, tidying up after meetings, but it also relates to the non-glamorous work at work, you know, like taking meeting notes or sitting on committees that don't lead to promotion or mentoring the interns, for example. Like, i t's not gonna impact your performance review, and so I really want to continue shedding light on these topics that people generally don't talk about, but they do actually make a huge difference when it comes to diversity, equity and inclusion. Zach: Man, shout-out to you, Ruchika. This has been super dope. I'm so excited. I love your work, I love your writing. We're gonna make sure we have all of your information in the show notes, including the books that you referenced, and then, like, let's just make sure--you know, you're a friend of the show. Like, you're welcome back at any time. So if you have anything you want to plug or you want to promote, you come here. We got you, okay? I'm serious, we got you. Let's see here. Before we let you go, any parting words you have for us, for the folks listening in, for the--so we call... so did you watch The Avengers?Ruchika: You know, I did not.Zach: Okay. All right, so--Ruchika: In my defense, I have a 3-year-old, and life is very full. [laughs]Zach: No, super respect. I definitely get it. My wife and I are welcoming our first kid.Ruchika: Oh, congratulations.Zach: Thank you very much. I was gonna make a reference. So, like, on Living Corporate, we call aspiring allies Buckys, because in The Avengers movie, Ruchika, Captain America had a friend, and his name was Bucky Barnes. But, see, Bucky Barnes got hurt, and he had to get some medical help, but his medical problems were so complex they had to actually send him to Wakanda, which is this fictionalized African nation--Ruchika: I know Wakanda. [laughs]Zach: Yeah, yeah, yeah, so--[laughs] and so then he goes to Wakanda, and they end up calling Bucky "The White Wolf," you see what I'm saying? Because he's, like, a friend of the Wakandans. So, you know, it's a long way of saying we have a lot of Buckys listening in, aspiring allies, and I'm just curious if you have any words for them, for the Wakandans listening in, and for everybody in-between.Ruchika: Ooh, wow. Okay, that is such a big sort of closing. [Zach laughs] So listen, I'll start first with the Buckys. I think here's the deal. You know, I think it's always--it's easy to, like, talk and believe that your frame of reference and your narrative is the most important or the most significant, and I think what we need to really start doing is to step back and listen. Like, literally listen and open up your networks and open up sort of your privilege and open up your world for people who haven't had that experience, right? And what I mean is, like, for example, I'm a small business owner. Buy from me. Don't come to me and say, "Oh, you're doing great things. I'm so proud of you." Buy from me. Refer me, you know? [cha-ching sfx] Yeah, literally. Like, it's literally that, you know? And if someone's doing great work at your company and, you know, you're a white man with a lot of influence, recommend the woman of color. "Hey, you know who should run this meeting? This person who never gets to do that," you know what I mean? So for me it's about moving away from being a passive ally into an active accomplice, and I've heard this framing from a few different people. And so it's really about being very active. So that's my thoughts about, you know, Buckys. When it comes to people of color, when it comes to people who have been underestimatd, I had an experience last week where I was underrepresented. It was really hard. It really, really hurt. I think in those moments you really need to find your people. Like, you need to find your people. And they can be Buckys or they can be fellow Wakandans, but you need to find your people that you can really come clean with, that you can sit down and be like, "Hey, this horrible thing happened to me. Tell me I'm not crazy," because for a long time, especially everything that actually led me to this moment, has been me pretending like, "No, everything's great. I'm fine. Yeah, some moments are tough, but otherwise I'm doing great. I'm working super hard." And I think we forget, like, we need those mental health checks. We need people who we can rely on, who can navigate some of the really, really hard stuff you have to navigate when you are underestimated at work. Does that work? Does that help? [laughs]Zach: Does that work? Let me tell you something, you're dropping mad bombs. [Flex bomb sfx] That's incredible. Man, no, absolutely it works. Thank you so much, Ruchika. Now, look, you were talking about the importance of pronouncing someone's name, and let me just say as an example, it is very important, y'all, and my country self--and I know some of y'all may think I come from Connecticut, but no, I'm actually from Georgia. Like, I'm very country, and--Ruchika: I love Georgia. I lived there for a while.Zach: I appreciate that, and yes, Georgia is a dope place. I'm from Rome, Georgia. Shout-out Rome, Georgia, and then shout-out to Mississippi 'cause that's where I'm from by way of 'cause that's where all my people are from. But look, you want to take the time, y'all, and really slow down and make sure you can--and ask. Like, people will always respect and appreciate you trying to ask and seek as opposed to being like, "What's your name? I'ma just call you Bob." Like, "No, don't call me Bob. That's not my name," right? Like, "My parents gave me this name. This name carries weight and meaning and history and culture, and it's part of who I am as a human being that exists on this plane of existence with you, so please take the time to understand how to pronounce my name." So with that said, Ruchika Tulshyan...Ruchika: Thank you very much.Zach: Thank you very much. No, you were a beast. This has been great. Very thankful to have you on the Living Corporate podcast. That does it for us, y'all. You know where to check us out. We're on Twitter @LivingCorp_Pod, Instagram @LivingCorporate. We're on all the different DSPs, so we got Spotify, Apple... I don't think we're on TIDAL. Maybe. I don't know. Holla at me, Hov. "It's ya boy!" I don't know. But we're on all the other DSPs, okay? So if you Google Living Corporate we will pop up, okay? You know, if you want to make sure--if you're a browser person, you're not really trying to take any risks, you know, type in www.livingcorporate.co, livingcorporate.tv, livingcorporate.us, livingcorporate.org, livingcorporate.net, living-corporate--please say the dash--dot com, but we don't have livingcorporate.com, okay? Australia has livingcorporate.com. The day that we're able to wrest livingcorporate.com from Australia is the day that we have arrived, okay? Ruchika: Wow. So you went out there and you got all of those domains?Zach: We've got all the domains.Ruchika: Wow. That is really--look, that takes a lot of work. I mean, obviously, you know, I'm, like, totally in awe, but this is, like, double the awe. That means you're really serious about this.Zach: Oh, we're not playing. So if you type in Living Corporate dot anything else we will come up, it's just that livingcorporate.com--so Australia, it's, like, this corporate housing website thing. It's really strange. And I've been, like, doing my work. I've been doing my Googles, my research, trying to figure out "How can I get this domain?" But you know, Australia's a big place. Living Corporate, we're only--you know, we're just one little company, but we're gonna get it though one day. Anyway, the point is we're all over. If you want to send us a listener letter, look, DMs are wide open. We are not elitists. You don't have to follow us, and we don't have to follow you, for you to DM us. Just hit us up, baby. We'll respond. Ruchika: But you should follow Living Corporate because their podcasts are so incredible, and really, if you care about, you know, making real change and you want to hear from people who are out there who are really making change, between all of you and your guests, I mean, I learn something every single episode.Zach: [straight up sfx] You hear that? Did you hear what Ruchika Tulshyan said? Come on, now. Goodness, gracious, the love is real. All right, y'all. Ruchika: I mean it.Zach: And I feel it, so thank you. Y'all, this has been Zach. You've been talking to Ruchika Tulshyan, speaker, innovator, educator...Ruchika: All the things. [laughs]Zach: All the things, you know what I'm saying? Give her all the things. Don't play, okay? And make sure, Harvard Business Review, if y'all listen to this, you know... don't play. She's dropping that heat.Ruchika: Hey, this is a very important part of this whole thing, okay? It's really important to spread the love and to, what I say, you know--you know, this is not a case of, like, sending the elevator back down, which is super important, especially, like--I say this a lot when I talk to a room full of women, but it's really important to be able to share the love and, like, be real, and be real in the sense like, "I need this. Can you help me get there?" And I think that's one thing that, if you've been underestimated at work, you've been told for so long that, you know, you don't matter or what you're doing isn't important enough, then it becomes hard to ask for help, right? I mean, all of the lean in narrative is about "Oh, you need to ask," but you have always been shot down or you have been shot down 9 out of 10 times, then of course you're gonna have bloody imposter syndrome, you know? Zach: Oh, my gosh. Yo, we gotta--okay, so do we need to have you back, like, for a variety of reasons, but certainly to talk about, like, how to ask for help and just, like, managing the emotional labor of asking for help over and over and over again, 'cause you're absolutely right. I mean, now, look, my dad, he's a salesman. Like, that's really who he is, and so I get it from him. Like, I'll shoot. Like, I'll shoot over and over and over again, but it doesn't change the fact that at the end I'm exhausted, and it's defeating to hear "no" all the time or to be undermined or for you to be told no, and then someone else comes along and asks for help and basically they end up doing a watered-down version of what you wanted help to do, you know what I mean? Like, that is... ugh, anyway. Goodness, y'all. Look, Ruchika got us over here about to have a whole new podcast in the wrap-up section of the show, but that's okay, y'all. Look, you've been listening to Living Corporate. Make sure you check us out. Check out the show notes. 'Til next time, y'all. Peace.Ruchika: And I'll be back. [laughs]Zach: And she'll be back. [laughs]

Zach speaks with Dr. Brian Williams, an accomplished surgeon and highly sought-after public speaker who shares his insights on racial trauma, resilience, and social justice. Thrust into the national spotlight in July 2016, Dr. Williams became a voice for racial reconciliation after a Dallas sniper shot 12 police officers at an anti-police brutality protest. At a press conference days after the tragedy, he voiced his concerns as an African-American man with regard to racial injustice and simultaneously decried violence targeted at law enforcement. He now travels nationally inspiring audiences about resilience and social justice at the intersection of race, violence, and medicine. He walks us through his actions that tragic day, talks a bit about his experience with the Dallas Citizens Police Review Board, and offers several pieces of wisdom for young professionals seeking to build effective partnerships for their personal and professional development and journey.Connect with Dr. Williams via LinkedIn or Twitter, and check out his personal website by clicking here.Interested in his podcast Race, Violence & Medicine? Follow this link to listen on a variety of platforms.Visit our website.TRANSCRIPTZach: What's up, y'all? It's Zach with Living Corporate, and you know what we do. We have authentic conversations with real folks to center black and brown experiences at work, and so if you are working any type of 9-to-5, even if it's your own 9-to-5, or maybe you're working, like, a 3-to-6. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know what y'all--you know, if you're out here working, you're grinding, you're at work, you're an underrepresented person, this is the platform for you. And so we have these conversations--and it's not just me talking to y'all or kind of, like, ranting into the ether. It's more so me having conversations with black and brown executives and different types of professionals, public servants, entrepreneurs, educators, activists, creatives, artists, and we're doing this all with the goal of amplifying underrepresented voices at work. And so again, we have a really great conversation. The person that I'm really excited to talk to today and introduce to you all, Dr. Brian H. Williams. Dr. Brian H. Williams is a first-generation college graduate who earned a degree in Aeronautical Engineering from the United States Air Force Academy. After six years of active duty military service, he followed a different call to serve and enrolled into medical school at the University of South Florida Morsani College of Medicine. He did his general surgery residency at Harvard Medical School/Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston, Massachusetts and a fellowship in trauma surgery and surgical critical care at Emory University/Grady Memorial Hospital in Atlanta, Georgia. Upon completion of his training, Dr. Williams served on the faculty at UT Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas, Texas, where he taught and mentored students, residents, and fellows. Dr. Williams is well-known for his role in treating victims of the July 7, 2016, Dallas police shooting. He was the trauma surgeon working on the seven injured officers who were emergently transported to Parkland Memorial Hospital. At a press conference following the tragedy, his heartfelt comments about racism, gun violence and policing touched thousands. Unbeknownst to Dr. Williams, his impromptu speech became a viral media event, and his life of comfortable anonymity ended. In addition--Brian: That's a mouthful. [both laugh]Zach: It is, but it's real though. In addition to his work as a trauma surgeon, Dr. Williams travels the country as a thought-provoking speaker sharing his unique insight on resilience, gun violence, and racial justice. He is also an opinion writer featured in the Dallas Morning News and hosts the podcast Race, Violence & Medicine. So y'all, we're gonna have all the links. If y'all don't remember the black doctor who was--it was all on the Twitters, you know what I'm saying, it was all on the social media. If y'all don't remember all that, we're gonna have all of his reference materials in the show notes, but, you know, that will be after y'all listen to the show. Dr. Williams, how are you doing?Brian: I'm doing fantastic, Zach. Thanks for having me on.Zach: Man, thank you for being here. So let's get into it. You were already known within your field, but you were thrust into the national spotlight after treating victims of the July 7th, 2016, Dallas police shooting. You were the trauma surgeon working, and so you were actively, right--like, I remember even in that video, you were--it was clear that you had just got done working. Like, you were--you were working. You know, I'm really curious. Considering your personal experience with police and the history of policing in black communities, what was going through your mind, like, just treating--like, in that situation? Can you talk about just what--of course there's no question as to your oath and your commitment to deliver care, but what I'm trying to understand--so, like, I want to be very upfront with that. What I'm trying to understand though is, considering your own experiences and your own identity, like, what was it like? Was it automatic? Was it just like, "Look, this is what I do?" Like, can you walk us through that experience?Brian: Sure. In that moment, when the officers were coming in, nothing else mattered. I just fell back on my training. So my experiences, my life experiences, that was not a factor in how I approached what I did, and, you know, it's a large team of nurses and doctors and students. So it wasn't just me, although I was the trauma surgeon that was on call that evening at the hospital. But in that moment, I'd give them the same sort of care I give any patient. Like, I do not differentiate based on occupations or race or ethnicity or--you know, all of those ways we try to categorize people as being different. That matters not to me. At the moment, I just saw a human being that was severely injured and critical, and I am trained to do things to try to save their lives. So that was what--like you said, it was automatic. It just was a crisis. My training kicked in, and I went to work.Zach: And so then talk to me a little bit about, like, so--you know, so after the care had been delivered and, you know, after you were done performing surgery and care, again, to the victims, you know, you had the conference. At what point did then, like, all of the emotions and thoughts and things come rushing back?Brian: Well, let me walk through the timeline of those few days. The shooting was on July 7th, 2016, but you may or may not recall that on July 5th, there was a shooting, Alton Sterling, in Baton Rouge, and on July 6th, that was Philando Castile in Minnesota. And then we had July 7th. So then on July 7th there were actually protests happening all around the country to bring awareness to this ongoing issue. People remember Dallas because of the tragic shooting that occurred there. This is happening all over the country. So I was aware, in those preceding couple of days, of those two deaths, and you could imagine that the public discourse was basically a screaming match about black lives matter and blue lives matter and all lives matter, and there's all this negative talk. So when I went to work on July 7th, I was aware of that but didn't expect this sort of tragedy to occur. A few days later, on July 11th, was when the press conference occurred that you referenced. So there was a couple days between the time of the shooting and the time of the press conference where I pretty much just cut myself off from society. I wasn't watching the news. I wasn't listening to the radio. I wasn't reading the paper. I just was in my own little bubble, because that night was--it's the worst night of my career. It's something I still think about to this day. It just really got to me for a number of reasons, but the big thing was that this was fueled by intolerance and hate and racism, and all of these elements that we don't discuss about in an honest, open manner fueled this event, and to lose any patient--but that happened on a night that was particularly volatile and unfortunately became historic for all of the wrong reasons. And going into the press conference, these were the things that I was thinking about - you know, what's going on in our country? What role am I playing to bring us together? Am I doing enough? What have I done with my life? There was just a mix of a lot of different emotions and thoughts which I didn't have the answers [to] or wasn't really able to process completely, which takes us to the press conference that you mentioned, and that all kind of spilled out in the moment without any plans or preparation. I just planned to sit there, just to be seen, because my wife felt that the country needed to see that there was a black surgeon there that night trying to do the right thing.Zach: You know, so let's talk a little bit about the conference, right? So, like, at the conference following the shooting, you said, quote, "I want the Dallas police officers to see me, a black man. I support you. I will defend you. I will care for you. That does not mean I do not fear you." Can we talk about, like, what you meant here? Like, what does that--and it's interesting, right, because it's almost--one could almost argue that those things are... like, there's a duality there, right? So, like, when you said this, what did you mean?Brian: Right, and that's exactly the word I was going to use. That's the duality that I think many black people in this country deal with. So to break it down into two parts, when I said "I support you," I'm a child of a military veteran. I have a lot of military veterans in my family. I went to the Air Force Academy. I was an Air Force officer. So I know what it means to wear a uniform, I know what it means to serve something greater than yourself. I know what it means to make sacrifices to serve a greater good. So although I'm not a police officer, that sort of ethos is not something that was foreign to me. Zach: And so, you know, because you took all of this--like, you took all of this, right? Like, so your fear, your frustration, your dedication as a public servant and as a consummate professional, and you mobilized that into an effective partnership to actualize change, right? And so here's my challenge though, right? My challenge is I can't look at any point in American history where police have done right by black people. So, like, just the historicity of policing in America for black bodies, and, like, not to mention, like, the pathological narratives that majority media propagates, as well as the institutional systems and laws that make holding police accountable so incredibly challenging. And so I'm really curious, 'cause I--I know that I'm not the only person who has these challenges. I don't doubt that, Dr. Williams, that some species of this has been on your mind at some point of time, and so I'm curious to know, like, with those things in mind, what was your journey to become, like, the chair of the Citizens Police Review Board, and can you explain what it meant to manage through those relationship dynamics?Brian: Yes, I'm on-board with what you're saying as far as the challenges, and I guess we'll get back to that in a second, but as far as the journey to the Citizens Police Review Board, that was--the mayor's office reached out to me about potentially joining the board as a chair, and that was because a prior chair was turning out, so he needed someone new. Now, the Citizens Police Review Board is meant to be this body that will hear complaints from citizens about their interactions with police, and they can bring them to the board, we can deliberate and try to give them some resolution. So that's what the board existed for at that time. I didn't know that the board existed when I was asked. I didn't know what it did. I didn't know if it was worthwhile. I didn't know if I had the time. I had all of these questions about the board, but I asked around and learned about it, and I said--I thought, "Yes, this can be something good for the community. It can be a voice for citizens," and I felt that I could make a positive contribution to all of this. It was definitely challenging. I learned a lot about the Dallas Police Department. I learned a lot about community activists. I learned a lot about various board members in City Hall. So there are a lot of stakeholders working towards public safety, and to bring them all together to come to some sort of collaborative effort to ensure that the public has trust in their police department is challenging, and I think it's actually now an ongoing journey now that the board has been revamped and given more support as far as resources, personnel and a budget, which we did not have when I was a chair. Zach: And so I'm curious though, right, like, when you talk about--it's just interesting, because I don't think that we have a lot of examples in American history when it comes to, like, relationships where the underrepresented voices have, like, actual authority over a majority group and things don't become strained, like, either quickly or over time, and I think authority and accountability is a struggle for anybody, right? So I don't think that that's unique or exclusive to dominant and sub-dominant groups, but I'm really curious about, like, what did it look like, especially--like you said, at the time that you were the chair there was not a budget. Like, what did it look like to really be the chair on this review board and talk about right behaviors? Like, do you feel like you were able to have honest dialogue? Do you believe that there was, like--do you believe that you had the actual authority to kind of, like, drive substantive change? Like, what did that look like for you?Brian: So I think that everyone involved knew exactly who they were getting with me as chair. For one, they saw my statements at that press conference. So I [?] there. Two, I wrote an opinion piece that published in the Dallas Morning News where--actually, I wrote two regarding the police, one that talked about the history of slave patrols and how this distrust in black communities goes back for hundreds of years. It just doesn't happen overnight. And I talked about, you know, police departments have historically been there to maintain control over communities of color. It wasn't about public safety or protecting their rights, it was about keeping communities of color in line. So that is the history with which we need to reckon in order to move forward. So everybody knew exactly what they were getting with Dr. Brian Williams, [laughs] which, you know, had its pluses and minuses. I think the benefit was they couldn't accuse me of having any kind of agenda, right? I was criticized from both law enforcement and, you know, black civilians for the comments I made. And I, you know, received praise as well. So I feel I was pretty much solidly in the middle of all of that that I could equally appeal to and offend anybody that was involved in moving the Police Review Board forward.Zach: So your journey didn't stop there, right? Like, what did you learn about yourself? Like, what were some of the main things that you learned about yourself that then prompted your transition from Dallas into the South Side of Chicago?Brian: Well, and I'll just say, you know, that last comment I was obviously kidding when I said offending people. [both laugh] But I guess the point there was I was moving forward with this mission to ensure a voice for the citizens of Dallas with integrity, and I did not try to have any sort of self-gain from it. It was about serving the city of Dallas and the people of Dallas.Zach: Which is rare, right? 'Cause I think, especially, like, in the political climate that we're in today, right, like, you see these voices, like, on the far right who--like, they're black voices. Like, they're tokens, like, coming and, like, sharing specific talking points and narratives without any, like, real intellectual substance behind them, and I think what really intrigued me about you--'cause I've spent a majority of my life in Dallas, and my mother is still in Dallas. I have family in Dallas, and so I was very familiar with--like, with your work and your statements, and they run very true to me and sensitive for me considering that I'm from that area, right? So what I'm curious about is did you ever feel any pressure to kind of, like, lean one way or the other or take on certain agendas or certain talking points that you yourself didn't agree with from a principle perspective?Brian: The short answer to that is yes, and I should say, you know, I wasn't immediately embraced by citizens that were working on police reform. [They didn't?] know who I was. You know, I was a new quantity, and people have been working on this reform for decades, right? These are Dallas natives that were born and bred here in Dallas, and I was--Zach: The activist culture is deep, right? There's a lot of community servants and activists who have been on the ground. So yeah, I'm right there with you. And it's hard. It's hard to break in, right? Like, when you're new and, like, the main thing you have when it comes to community activism--from what I understand, because I would not consider myself a community activist because I know that I want to respect that work, but what I understand is, like, really it's your relationships--your social capital is, like, gold, right? That's, like, the only thing you have, and if you're unknown, then it's hard to, like, you know, break the ice.Brian: Exactly. And I will say your podcast is a form of activism.Zach: I appreciate that. Thank you. Thank you, Dr. Williams, man. You got me blushing, man. [both laugh] Brian: You're doing it, man. You're doing it.Zach: Man, I really appreciate it. So let's talk about South Side, Chicago. Like, you transitioned, you went there. Like, what was the call or the impetus to transition from Dallas to Chicago?Brian: Well, my journey in health care--I mean, I've always been very mission-driven about what I can do to eradicate racial health care disparities, and that is a nation-wide mission, right? That can occur anywhere. Now, as a trauma surgeon, I'm particularly focused on gun violence as well. So South Side, Chicago, you know, there's a lot of gun violence here. It's frequently talked about in the media in ways that aren't--I think that dehumanizes the population that's there living within these violent communities. There was a new trauma center that opened up in the area, and several of my mentors were here at the trauma center, so there was this perfect storm of the mission that I want to serve with a community that was very active in getting this trauma center here built with people I know that had flocked here, and I said, "You know what? I would like to be a part of having impact that will cross generations," right? And I think it's happening right now, and that's why I wanted to join this group here. As far as Dallas, you know, that was not an easy decision. I had been in Dallas--I was in Dallas for 9 years. That's the longest I've been in one spot my whole life. It's now my de facto home. [laughs] If Texas will accept me, it's pretty much my de facto home. I've been moving my entire life as a military kid, as a military officer, you know? I feel home in Dallas. I still follow what's going on in Dallas. I'm interested in what's gonna happen to my home city. Zach: And so, you know, I'm interested, right, in addition to this you're a respected health care leader. Can we talk a little bit about how your work and the legacy of racism impacts health care inequity, right? Like, so you're coming in, and you're in Chicago, and yes, like, you're supporting--there's a gun violence issue in South Side, Chicago, and I--you know, honestly, I really do wish that some folks never found out about Chicago, because I feel as if it's, like, the default when anybody ever wants to pathologize black folks. It's very annoying. It's just like, "Golly, I wish that--anything Chicago, I just wish y'all wouldn't have known about it." But, you know, in your work, can you talk a little bit about, like, how health care inequity shows up, right? Like, that's been an ever-growing talking point or just point of awareness, right, like, in headlines and mainstream media, growing awareness around health care inequity for black and brown folks juxtaposed to majority members, white counterparts. Can we talk a little bit about, like, what you've seen from a perspective of inequity and kind of, like, how you've combated that as a black surgeon?Brian: I would like to see us get to a point where we just get real about what health care disparities are and health care inequities. This is the legacy of racism in this country. It's about health, poverty, housing, education, employment. Like, there are so many things to unpack and address. Health care is one part, and that's where I happen to be, you know, an expert in that particular field, but I recognize that what I do in the hospital is not gonna be enough to uplift these communities in need. And like you said, I don't like to pathologize Chicago either. I'm coming here to help, but I don't know how to talk about it without being offensive to people that live here, right? Like, who am I to talk about their community? So I'm trying to be sincere about my desire to contribute, to uplift the community without being offensive to the folks that live here and are actually gonna be doing the work for a long time. So I completely agree with you that even I feel like an outsider sometimes in doing this work.Zach: So then, you know, I think--and I'm really excited, and I'm thankful that you've been able to come on the podcast, because I think what really intrigued me about having you on, beyond you just sharing your story and the work that you've done and that you do, is around, like, the concept of effective relationships and building relationships with individuals that you may not feel immediately safe with or comfortable with, and I know that that involves a certain level of emotional labor for you, even today, right? I'm curious though, like, if you could give younger professionals any advice about building relationships--and when I say relationships, I'm thinking more like coalitions for your personal and professional development and journey. Like, if you could, like, boil it down to, like, three things, what would they be?Brian: I would say, first and foremost to young professionals, nothing is worth sacrificing your dignity for acceptance. What I mean is that the papers and the promotions and the titles, like, if you have to leave part of who you are at home, if you have to compromise your integrity and your ethics and your purpose to achieve those goals, those goals aren't worth it, so do not hand over your dignity for acceptance. That's one. Two, you need to set your boundaries. If you don't set your boundaries someone else will set them for you, and you may not like them. And actually I believe that if you set your boundaries, that will lead to greater connectedness with people, not less, because you are respecting who you are and what you stand for. You're not letting anyone else compromise that for you. And the third thing is just always keep your end goal in mind. As you're going through life, your profession, like, think about what it is you want to accomplish, where you want to be. If you never lose sight of that, then all that noise and chaos that you encounter on the way, you'll be able to filter through that and not lose sight of the end objective. So people call it your North Star, your purpose, but I think your end goal, whatever that is, never lose sight of that.Zach: Man, Dr. Williams, this has been a great conversation. I just gotta thank you again for being a guest on the podcast. Any shout-outs or parting words before we let you go?Brian: No, Zach. First of all, thank you for--I'm honored that you asked me to be on the show, and I'm glad that we were able to make this happen. And I'm always happy to engage with listeners. They can check out my website, BrianWilliamsMD.com. That's Brian with an I. I'm pretty active on Twitter at @BHWilliamsMD. But if you do drop me a line, email or direct message, I will get back to you. And you talked about making connections. That's one way that I have increased my connectivity with the universe. Thanks again.Zach: Man, thank you so much. All right, y'all, you know what it is. You've been listening to Dr. Williams, surgeon, speaker, educator, public servant, man... just overall dope individual. 'Til next time, this has been Zach. We'll catch y'all next time. Peace.

In this bonus episode, Zach chats with Amanda Edwards, a Democratic candidate for the U.S. Senate, about her journey in electoral politics and the importance of voting ahead of Super Tuesday.Connect with Amanda on LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram and Twitter, and check out her website by clicking here.Visit our website.TRANSCRIPTZach: What's up, y'all? Look, it's Zach with Living Corporate, and yes, I know. It's a Monday. You're like, "Whoa, why are you dropping content on a Monday? The world is shifting! Why is reality as I know it splitting in half?!" No, you're probably not doing any of that. You're probably just like, "Yo, okay. Another podcast, okay." And that's what it is. It's, like, a bonus pod. Look, y'all. Remember when we had Royce West a couple--you know, it was, like, a week or two ago? A little bit ago. The point is, we had Senator Royce West on, Texas State Senator Royce West--what's up, respect to the man--to talk a little bit about voting and the importance of voting. Today is the day before Super Tuesday, right? Like, Tuesday, that's the day you vote for the person that you want to continue forward in the respective race, whether it be presidential or senatorial, and we have Amanda Edwards on. Amanda Edwards is someone who is running for U.S. Senate. She is a native Texan and former Houston City Council member who represented 2.3 million constituents, and she actually left that position to run for U.S. Senate. A pretty crowded race. We're talking a little bit about just her background and the importance of voting as well as really why we should vote. And you'll hear me say it in the podcast, y'all. Like, Living Corporate is about amplifying and centering black and brown experiences at work. I believe a way--not the only way, but a way to do that for yourself civically is by voting. And I recognize there are different positions, like going full dissident. We had Howard Bryant on the show, and he talked about the idea of Colin Kaepernick not voting, because he's like, "Look, if I believe that the system is inherently broken and I can't vote my way out of oppression, then why should I vote?" But, you know, there are different points of opinion on that. I do believe we have the right to vote. People are actively looking to take away our ability to vote, questioning our very right to be here. I believe a great way to just say that we matter is by voting. So make sure y'all check out this episode. Nothing changes for the rest of the week. We've got more content for your head top starting tomorrow and then Thursday and then Saturday, and then the marathon continues. 'Til next time, y'all. Peace.Zach: Amanda Edwards, welcome to the show. How are you doing?Amanda: I'm great. Thank you so much for having me on this morning.Zach: It's not a problem. Now, look, just to start, many people are saying that, you know, Texas is really truly the battleground state. So goes Texas, so goes the nation regarding tilting red or blue. So there have been, you know, accelerated attempts to speed that up. We've had Beto and Wendy's campaigns being notable in that regard. So with that let me ask you, do you think Texas is ready? And if so, what makes you the right choice to get us there?Amanda: Absolutely I believe Texas is in fact ready in 2020, and the question remains is will the Democrats put up the right candidate who will be able to unseat John Cornyn. It is not a far-gone conclusion that it will inevitably happen. It will happen if we put forward the correct candidate, and that is someone who can build upon the strengths of Beto's election. So when we looked at Beto's 2018 run, in a time where nobody thought it would be possible to flip the state of Texas, Beto came within 215,000 votes of doing so, and he did so in large part based on the strength of getting persuadable voters out to vote for him. In other words, people who were independent voters or people who were in suburbs or people who were in non-traditional markets, like smaller markets that typically don't vote heavily Democratically, those are areas and spaces and places in which he had tremendous success in terms of getting the vote out. Where there were still some opportunities left on the table happened to be--when you look closely at the numbers, you saw that communities of color, they registered in high numbers, but they didn't turn back out and vote in high numbers. There were less than 50% of the registered numbers. People under the age of 35 likewise had high levels of registration but did not turn out to vote in those same high levels. They were under 50% of their registered numbers. So what if you had a candidate who could, by virtue of her politics, allow her to galvanize those persuadable voters yet again, but in addition to that be able to build upon Beto's run and actually also bring in those communities of color that had registered but did not actually vote, bring them into the fold as well as those under the age of 35 who had this similar situation arise with registration versus actual turnout. If you can build all three of those coalitions, you will actually the votes necessary in order not just to come close but to actually beat John Cornyn and to make history in Texas, and that is what we're planning to do after getting out of this Democratic primary, which is in fact a very crowded field, but I think a very important testament to the significance of the time that we're living in. 'Cause it used to be the case where you couldn't get anybody to run in these primary elections because of how difficult the feat was considered to be. Now of course, people have internalized that Texas is in fact winnable now, and in fact, that's why a number of us are running in this race. I for one left my city council at-large state--I was representing about 2.3 million Texans--to pursue this because I know how significant and important it is that we not just come close but that we actually can win, and the only way to do that is by galvanizing those coalitions that I mentioned to you.Zach: So what have been some of the greatest, you know, advantages and biggest challenges in not only being young and being black and being a woman, but being a young black woman in this race?Amanada: Well, the first thing you always have to do is your homework, right? And we know that this is a change election, meaning there's gonna be a lot of non-traditional voters turning out to vote, and so you can as a result--I mean, just to [?] small statistic, since 2016 for example--and there's been well over 2.6 newly registered voters in Texas. Of that number, over 1.6 million of them are people of color and/or under the age of 25 years old. And so if you look at that or you think about that statistic, the electorate is changing. So someone who's younger, someone who is a person of color, is actually consistent with the wave of change that we're seeing in Texas as we speak. So these are not, you know, things that many people from the outside looking in might view to be challenges that I face or obstacles I see as strengths. And so we have a huge opportunity in our hands, putting in a candidate that looks and sounds and is about change. Also a candidate who has a track record for such. I think it's important when you have someone--when you talk to some of these communities that stayed at home last election cycle. Let's take some of the communities of color, for example. Back in '17 when Harvey struck my community, there was 51 inches of rainfall that fell across our community. Billions of dollars in damage, loss of life, loss of property, you name it. Devastation across a broad spectrum, and I got a phone call to go check on some of my low-income seniors. I said, "No problem," and I went, and I just went to their houses impromptu, and I learned they weren't removing the walls from their homes. And of course they had been soiled by the flood water, and that will result in mold setting in if you don't remove those walls. So I mobilized hundreds of volunteers. We went out and started going door to door. Well, the first question I was asked by many homes was "Oh, are you up for re-election?" And they asked it very innocently, but the question is an illustration of a much broader systemic problem in which people are only accustomed to seeing their elected officials when it's time for us to get a vote, and we've got to make it more than just about electoral politics and voting. We've got to make it about depositing in people's lives, and I think that's how you bridge that disconnect with a lot of these communities of color who are used to being exploited around election time only to see that the promises are never delivered, and we've got to have a messenger, which would be me, who can demonstrate when they ask "Well, why should I believe you that it will be different? Because I've heard this before," I can say it's been different for the communities that I've represented, and that's gonna be huge in bridging the disconnect. So again, another strength out of what some could perceive to be a disadvantage. I see it as a strength.Zach: I love it. So, you know, it's easy I think--and let's talk a little bit about, like, the presidential race as well, because it's Monday, the day before Super Tuesday, y'all. Y'all get out there and let's get to voting. Let's go. Let's move. But it's easy, right, for black and brown folks, I think, to look at the current slate of candidates and see that the Democratic Party does not really prioritize the voice and representation, like, of us, and with that in mind, I'm curious, why do you think it's important for that same group to vote in 2020 if the alternative could be just another candidate that will ultimately ignore them?Amanda: I think that's what my campaign is all about, not just electing--well, first I need you to elect me. [laughs] But that's just one step. The second is something that I've embarked upon as a local elected official, which has been about empowering people and to also hold their leadership accountable for the things that come out of [our?] mouth. So it's not good enough to see me in the campaign cycle and let me go away and not come back until the next campaign cycle, because how do you get what you deserve in your community unless you hold me accountable? We have to have an open line of communication. This open line can be state-wide. It relates to not just being responsive to constituent requests but being present in communities, hosting a town hall. When I come to you, you should be having the report card out. "Well, where are you with this? We talked about this. What's the timing on this?" Or not even a report card. I should just proactively share with you where we are with that. That's being effective as a leader in delivering results. Before I got into politics, I will tell you, I was a [?] lawyer. I was a municipal finance lawyer. You don't get paid [?] 'til the deal gets closed. So in my mind I'm hard-wired to think in terms of deliverables, right? And so you have to close the deal before you get paid for it. In the world of politics, people just give speeches all the time and not see progress. In some kind of way that's doing your job, and I just don't think that the bar is high enough. I think doing your job is bringing home the things, the change you discussed on the campaign trail and not pointing fingers. What if the premium was [?]? And this also turns to the electorate, okay? Constituents have to raise the bar for themselves. It cannot be that you say "I want to send a boxer to go perform surgery." If you're asking somebody to bring home deliverables like policy changes, it's not about me beating somebody else in the public arena, in public. It's not about me getting some cable news, you know, applause for some Tweet I made. It's about going and getting those bills passed, and that's what we have to begin to focus our attention on. So often it's the case that we focus on the fight versus focus on the result, and I think there's a role to be played by the electorate to understand that. You've got to be focused on who do we think is a mover in that place and get something done there. That's what we should be rewarding, not so much who can be mean like Donald Trump or who can, you know, fight him. I mean, that's part of the equation, but that's not the exclusive element that we should be focused on. You know, and I think that gets lost, and that's a huge detail. I mean, part of the dysfunction we have in Washington, the polarization, is because we elect people to go in and be polarizing.Zach: So, you know, you mentioned Donald Trump, and it's interesting because the next thing I was gonna ask you was about millennials and Gen Z black and brown voters in this cycle keep getting told that we have to make compromises in order to beat Trump, which often means accepting candidates that have troubling racial records, right? And I don't even know why I'm saying troubling racial records. People got records out here that's showing that they're mad racist and/or--this is my show, I'ma stop trying to use all this little political language. I ain't playing with y'all. You know what I'm saying, they got some crazy stuff happening in their past, but we're challenged to vote for them anyway. So, like, should we make that trade-off? And if so, why?Amanda: I think you vote for what you want to see. I mean, some people try to--because ultimately that's what change is about. So if you see a candidate that espouses the change you want to see and enough people see it, I mean, whether you are in agreement with Bernie Sanders or not, you know, he was seemingly a long-shot early on, right? And now of course you see him gaining momentum, and it's not because people say "Oh, he's gonna be the easy one to win early on." They got behind him. They wanted to see what he was talking about. Same thing with a litany of other candidates that we've seen. Obama, you know? Obama was not the likely candidate to emerge.Zach: I remember that in high school, yeah.Amanda: He was the unlikely candidate, and people just wanted to see that change that he described so they got behind him. And we've done it for good and for bad. I mean, Donald Trump is another example. You know, my good example is Barack Obama, President Obama. My bad example is Donald Trump. But people wanted to see somebody mess up the system, you know? They wanted to see the establishment just turned on its head, and I don't know if they're all pleased with the way it was turned on its head or not, but he's had a critical mass of supporters stick with him, and you just--you know, in both Obama's example and Trump's example, neither of those were considered the likeliest candidate. So it's about seeing what you want to see. So you support who you believe can deliver the change you're looking for, and if the candidate that you see--you know, the candidate that you're being told to vote for isn't that person, then don't vote for him, 'cause you're the one who's gonna be holding the bag with the policies they promote. Zach: That's a fact though. No, that's true, and I think the reality is--I saw this somewhere on Twitter, 'cause you know, Twitter has all the quotables, but it said something like "The person who's electable is the person you vote for." Right? Like, just vote for 'em.Amanda: That's right. I love that.Zach: Okay. So in this country and in this state, public or private, the quality of your education has more to do with the value of your home and your zip code than your work ethic. So when you're in the Senate and you're asked to confirm the next secretary of education, what would you ask them to change?Amanda: Well, #1 I need a secretary of education that actually believes in public education. Can we just start there?Zach: Man. Yo, what is up with her, man?Amanda: I hate to start--Zach: Nah, let's let these shots off. No, let's go. Come on. [ratatata sfx]Amanda: It's such a fundamental [?]. If you don't believe that public education should even be there, that's probably not the person to have over the department of ed, #1. #2, I would make sure that we have strategies in place for our students to be successful no matter where they're in school. One of the things that is just--you know, you've heard about the phrase "The silent bigotry of low to no expectations," right? And for us to not have those expectations of our students and put systems in place for success, pathways for success, and not just success today. I'm talking about leading the next generation of jobs. You know, why--I do a lot of work on tech and innovation, and people always--you know, and I do a lot of work in minority communities as well, and they don't see those things as being harmonious, and I'm saying this should be something that's in all of our classrooms. We should be introducing our young people to the concept of entrepreneurship and, you know, just all of the things. We should be making those introductions. We shouldn't just be teaching for tests, okay? Because kids, that's not preparing them for life. I'm not saying you can't have a test, but we've gone crazy with it. We cannot just be there for tests and that's the measure for success. We have to do better, and we have to have a well-rounded education where people have multiple pathways for success, including vocational, but also including four-year institutions no matter where you live and how much money you make. In Texas we have seen the course challenged time and time and time and time again, our full financing structure, and that requires us to say education is a right, which we have not gone as far to say. So you're not going to see the reforms that you truly need to see, which is--you know, the connection between where you live and the quality of your education doesn't make any sense. Education is our great equalizer, yet we're perpetuating how unequal it actually is by virtue of tying it to your income--I mean, of tying it to your property tax value. This is not something that makes any sense, but we continue to perpetuate the systems because, you know, we have people in office who don't believe that public education has value. I am a product of public high school, and I will tell you, you know, it is so important that we are investing more than what we have in the past, because there's so many other challenges and conflating variables our students face. So I'm a proponent of making sure that all of our students, no matter where they go to school, can be successful. They need to see that. I like to go back to my alma mater and, you know, model the behavior. You should have expectations of going to school, and they've got to see it. They're not necessarily going to see that at home all the time, so we've got to supplement that with the support they're getting in school, but truthfully speaking, a lot of the support that I recall being in school when I was a student are no longer there 'cause they got cut. We balance our state budgets on the backs of our students all of the time, and consequently our students have fewer resources to succeed, like wrap around services, and just--I could go on and on and on and on about what needs to happen with our education system, but I think first and foremost we need somebody innovative coming to the table, bring some new ideas to the table, and I would be highly eager to see, once we get our new president in office, that we bring somebody in who can be serious about educating our youth so we'll have a prepared workforce for tomorrow.Zach: So that sets me up well for my last question before we let you go. So irrespective of who wins the election in November, the Democratic primary race has shown that there is a more progressive, ethnically diverse voting population that is [?], so what do you believe the Democratic Party at large can do to ensure that they capitalize on this ever-growing reality?Amanda: In terms of electoral politics?Zach: Yes.Amanda: I think we've got to make sure that we're putting up candidates that are receptive to the issues that these communities face, and too often I'm asked, "Oh, [?]?" And I say, "Well, I think it's additive to be honest with you." I think, you know, the black community cares about health care access and education just like anybody else would, but they also have other issues in addition that they care about. But what [?] me is when people try to reduce it down to one issue, and that's the only issue that we face. The truth is we have additional issues that we have to contend with, and we have to have a broad spectrum of answers that are responsive to the broad spectrum of media. And so we've got to have to figure out how to do that. I'd like for us to be serious about elections, more serious about how we treat our elections in general with a national holiday for Election Day. I mean, I just think it's crazy that we don't have that in our country. Obviously we know why that is not the case, but it should be, and just--you know, we have holidays for all kinds of things that don't make a lot of sense, but we don't do that for Election Day? And that's the primary part of how our democracy works? I think that's problematic. So yeah, I think we've got to really start to not view the diverse candidates that do come forward as being candidates that have challenges because they're diverse. I think they're candidates that are stronger because of being diverse candidates, 'cause that's the direction the country is headed, and we should support our candidates and support diversity within that representation, but also provide for more ways to provide clear sources of information that are truthful, you know? Like, some people pick up the League of Women Voters guide and things like that, but a lot of people don't even know where to start with this stuff.Zach: Right, you're absolutely right.Amanda: You know, and it's very overwhelming as someone who's been in government and in electoral politics. It's overwhelming for people the kind of questions I get. "How do I register? When do I register?" Why isn't there one clear depository for all the information for these things where you could just information for candidates, information for--you know, just things like that. There should be some kind of clarity provided for people to make it easier to participate.Zach: From an accessibility perspective, right?Amanda: Yeah. You're kind of on your own out there, and I just think that's not the way to make it accessible to the masses.Zach: Amanda, this has been a great interview, a great conversation. Thank you so much for having us. Y'all, it's Monday, the day before Super Tuesday. Making sure we bring y'all the stuff to make sure that y'all continue to have your voice amplified and centered, and you can't do that if--well, look, for the sake of this podcast and this conversation, I'ma say you voting is a critical way to amplify and center your voice. Let's make sure you get out there and you vote, and we'll catch y'all next time. Peace, y'all.

Zach welcomes Dr. Oni Blackstock, the assistant commissioner for the Bureau of HIV/AIDS Prevention and Control for the NYC Health Department, to the podcast to discuss a wide variety of topics, ranging from her unique career journey to dismantling white supremacist constructs, and she graciously offers a couple points of recommendation regarding how to get started when it comes to advocating for yourself to get the health-related help that you may need at work.Connect with Dr. Blackstock on LinkedIn, Twitter, and Instagram!Visit Living-Corporate.com.TRANSCRIPTZach: What's up, y'all? It's Zach with Living Corporate, and look, man, you know what we do. It's 2020. You know, fresh vision. You know, we're out here making moves, having conversations with movers and shakers, influencers, educators, public servants... what else? Who else? Executives, recruiters, entertainers. You know what I'm saying? Anybody who's willing to have an authentic conversation centering and amplifying underrepresented voices at work, and today, you know, I'm really excited about this particular interview. And I say that every time, but, like, I mean it every single time, even though I say it, like, over and over, but I really do mean it. And so I'm really excited. This particular episode we have Dr. Oni Blackstock. Dr. Blackstock, how are you doing? What's going on? Oni: I'm good. Thanks so much for having me.Zach: Thank you so much for joining us. Now, look, what I would like to do--'cause see, what I sometimes do, in the past I would give this, like, kind of, like, generic--I don't want to say generic, but I would, like, read off an intro, almost like a late-night show, and then I'd go in and I'd ask people to introduce themselves again. It seems kind of redundant, so what I want to do this time is just give you space and, for those of us who don't know you, just give you some space to talk a little bit about yourself.Oni: Okay, great. So again, I'm Oni Blackstock. I'm a primary care physician and HIV specialist. I also spent about the past 10 years conducting HIV research, but I now lead the Bureau of HIV at the New York City Health Department, meaning I oversee our city's response to ending the HIV epidemic. I'm originally from Brooklyn, New York. Parents, my dad is an immigrant from Jamaica, and my mom is Brooklyn-born and bred. And I have a twin sister, Dr. Uche Blackstock, and, you know, we're very much inspired by our parents to really meld medicine and public health with activism and advocacy, and so I get to do that in my current role leading the Bureau of HIV here in New York City.Zach: Okay. So first of all, incredible background, incredible legacy, and shout-out to the Blackstocks, the family, and shout-out to your sister of course as well. So I know, you know, the background being Jamaican--now, you know we do air horns. Now, let me ask you this. I've asked past Jamaican guests, but it is offensive or culturally appropriative that we also use air horns on our podcast?Oni: No, not at all. It's great. It's about the diaspora. Zach: Okay, cool, 'cause I gotta let 'em fly for you. Let me just drop 'em right here. [air horns sfx] Okay, 'cause I'm just very excited and thankful that you're here. Now, let's talk a little bit more about your background, right? So you talk about your focus being HIV and that particular illness. What was it about that work that drew you in particularly?Oni: Yeah. So I was in medical school when I feel like I quote-unquote first discovered HIV, and that was actually when I was doing global health work. So I had traveled to Ghana and West Africa, as well as South Africa, to do HIV-related research, and when I came back I did a rotation as a medical student back in New York City and saw that we had black people, Latino people, dealing with many of the same sort of medical-related issues, and even just sort of socio-structural issues, as I did when I was in Ghana and South Africa, and became very interested in our domestic HIV epidemic, and so I ended up doing my residency, which is the training that you do after medical school, in the Bronx at Montefiore Medical Center, where again I was seeing young black and brown people dying of, like, advanced AIDS, which was something I was really surprised and I think maybe people didn't realize was stlil happening in New York City. And I think what I in particular--what draws me to HIV is that it's really--it's not just an interesting bio-medical condition, but it's also, like, a social condition, and it's really an epidemic of not behavior, but an epidemic of inequality. So it's a confluence of lots of isms and lots of phobias, and you put all of those together and you sort of get HIV and you see the communities that are most impacted.Zach: And, you know, it's really interesting, this conversation particularly, because you're in a position where you're providing awareness and research and thought leadership and care for underrepresented, underserved populations--and often times stigmatized and just oppressed populations--while also being an intersectional member of a variety of underrepresented and oppressed populations and identity groups. Can you talk about, like, what that experience, that compounded experience, is like for you? Like, being in this space, being who you are?Oni: Right. Yeah, so I think what has driven me to do this work is because I'm from many of the different communities that are impacted by HIV. So I think sometimes for people who do this work it's maybe about careerism or they find it intellectually interesting, but for me it's really about helping my people and my community. So yeah, I mean, I think having the different identities, being a cisgender black woman, being someone who's queer and being at the intersection at these different marginalized identities gives me a different appreciation and understanding of what the factors are that folks are dealing with out in the community, and also the position. You know, even when we're designing, for instance, social marketing campaigns, like, I can say--you know, I'm able to give my input and--you know, we had a campaign, for instance, that was focused on pre-exposure prophylaxis, or PrEP. It's a once-a-day pill that people who are HIV-negative can take to stay HIV-negative. We did one for a focus on cisgender and transgender women, women of all different backgrounds, but what I did notice that I think most other people didn't notice is that all of the women were very, like, fem-presenting, and so, you know, I was like, "In the future when we do this work, we might want to have folks who may be non-conforming in their appearance." You know, just have different folks who may identify as women but have a different gender expression. And so I think, like, just sort of that awareness of understanding the different needs that may be out there of having these different perspectives is something that I think I can bring to this role and I think is, you know, really important, because the reality is that in many cities we don't have people who are leading this type of work who are reflective of the communities that are most impacted.Zach: You know, that's just a really good point. It's interesting because, you know, even as we talk about, like, representation and diversity in our marketing and, like, presentation, it's interesting how colorism and patriarchy still, like, sneak in to those spaces too, right? So, like, if you have--like, if you're presenting as a woman, often times it is going to be someone who is, like, traditionally fem or lighter-skinned or with hair that is a certain texture. Like, there's still, like, this template, right? That individuals are going to--that we either consciously or subconsciously seek to, like, place people in. Even when you see, like, people in positions of authority or any type of subject matter expertise in the space, you end up--I don't know. Again, they fit certain templates to me, and that leads me to another question though. Kind of starting at the top. So your lived experience brings a certain level of empathy along with your actual academic expertise. May I ask, are there ever moments or times where you believe that sometimes your lived experience or the passion that comes with that lived experience is almost counted against you because you lack a certain level of [laughs] intellectual objectivity that maybe white individuals or just folks who are not necessarily identifying these particular identity groups, that they can relate to?Oni: Well, I think--right, so that idea of, like, objectivity... I mean, it's, like, a construct. It's, like, a white supremacist construct, because we all come with our own perspectives and backgrounds. So it's sort of, like, a fallacy, I think, but yeah, I think that might happen. I think I am also fortunate, or maybe some might say unfortunate, but, you know, I did get my college degree at Harvard undergrad. I was a computer science major and I was pre-med. I went to Harvard Medical School. I got my Master's in Health Sciences from Yale's School of Medicine. So I have, like, sort of these bonafides that are sort of respected more by white culture, the dominant culture, which I feel like gives me quote-unquote credibility among some of these folks, if that makes any sense. So I feel like that somehow, like, helps to open doors in a different way, and then obviously having--you know, and sometimes just even having an MD, people make assumptions, and sometimes you can use those to your benefit, which is helpful. But, you know, at the same time, it does feel--it's kind of cringe-worthy and kind of not the best feeling to be benefitting from these same systems which also act to, like, oppress us as well, so... [?]Zach: Well, it's complex and nuanced. I'm just curious about that, because as I continue to get into just this work, any time you talk about, like, underserved folks or, like, doing work that seeks to push for equity in certain spaces, there seems to be, like, this underlying kind of attitude sometimes, so I was just curious about that. You know, you just spoke about--you used one of the buzzwords that triggers a lot of fragility in today's society, white supremacy. I'm curious, you know, on Living Corporate we've discussed the concept of decolonization, and one of the ways that we've seen colonization demonstrated is in language. Can we talk a little bit about medical terms that, intentionally or unintentionally, undermine the reality and complexity of systemic racism and other isms and various forms of oppression?Oni: Sure. Okay, so I think any term that, like, focuses the issue on the individual as opposed to, like, the structures and systems that drive risk and disease and poor health and poor well-being, so--I mean, for me, I mean, there's [?]--I actually tweeted about this recently. So, you know, terms like someone being a "medically-complex patient" or someone being high-risk or non-compliant really is about--you know, white supremacist culture puts the onus and responsibility on the individual and doesn't--you know, it ignores, like, completely, the context in which people are making decisions and choices. And so, you know, these are--you know, we're trying to, like, move away, at least at the Health Department, my bureau, from some of these terms, which are victim-blaming and lack recognition for these broader systems that increase risk for individuals.Zach: And I'm curious about that. Like, what does it look like to drive those conversations and to have folks say, like, "Stop. Let's take a step back and actually look at the systems that are impacting these individuals." Like, what does that look like? How do you broach those topics?Oni: Yeah. So I think one of the cool things here, at least the New York City Health Department, is the former health commissioner--her name is Dr. Mary Bassett. She's a black woman, and she started a whole initiative called Race to Justice, which was sort of an effort to understand and recognize the impact on racism on public health and health outcomes, and so by someone in her position sort of normalizing the conversations around racism really sort of opened the door for a lot of the work that I'm doing in my bureau with the staff here. So for instance, we received millions of dollars in funding from the federal government and from the city government that we then bid out in a competitive process to clinics and other community-based organizations to provide HIV prevention treatment services, and we were looking at this process and, you know, seeing that the same sort of large organizations that are typically not run by folks who look like the folks who are impacted tended to get a lot of the contracts. And so the great thing about being able to lead a bureau, lead an organization, is that we made sure that--we started looking at the process and figuring out "What are the ways that we could make this process more equitable?" But what we also did is in our request for a proposal we called out these different systems of oppression. You know, many times--before I came here, like, a lot of the requests for proposals would say things like "poverty" and "food insecurity," and it's like, "But what are the things that drive those things?" Right? Like, we need to call them out, and if we call them out, the organizations that we fund will know that these are issues that we are thinking about, and we're thinking explicitly about equity in this work, and so I made sure that in our request for a proposal that we use this language, that we don't just say people of color, that we say specifically the groups that are impacted. We say black and Latinx people. Like, you know, it's just calling it out and being really explicit and really putting it out there so that it becomes normalized and really part of the work that we do.Zach: And it's interesting, because I've noticed over the past--I would say since, I don't know, since... so over the past, like, decade or so. 'Cause I'm 30, so I've been working for about 9 or 10 years, right? So as I just kind of come into adulthood, just looking around, looking at the language that people use when it comes to just, like, systems of injustice or inequity, it's almost like they just--we use language that is... like things just happened. It's like we don't talk about how things are connected at all. I think I was reading some story about a young man who had a mistaken identity, and it said "A teen was hospitalized after being mis-identified by police." Well, no. He wasn't hospitalized because he was mis-identified by police. He was hospitalized because he was beaten by the police because he mis-identified him. It's almost like we take out the action or the accountability in the language and framing that we place. So let's do this. As you know, since the publication of Healthy People 2020, it's been confirmed that stress is one of the primary drivers of racial and socio-economic health disparities. Can we talk a little bit about the practical impacts of chronic stress for black and brown folks and how it shows up when it's under-treated? And then, you know, as you talk through a bit about what that looks like, I guess my Part B to that question is what are things that black and brown folks should be looking out for regarding their own stress and what ways can they advocate for themselves as patients?Oni: Mm-hmm. Yeah, so obviously these are, like, very weighty, big issues. You know, I think stress has, you know, wide-ranging impacts on our overall health and well-being. You know, when we are exposed to stress, or just the stress of being a black or brown person in this country--you know, I don't know if folks realize this, but it leads to, obviously, an elevation in [stress?] hormones like cortisol and nor-epinephrine and epinephrine, and those have, like, very harmful effects on the body. And so we can think about mental health, so, you know, depression and anxiety, and I have to--full disclosure, I myself am dealing with depression and anxiety, and I think a lot of it is attributed to really the chronic stress that we face, I think particularly in some of these professional work environments where we are held to very different standards than other people, and so having, you know, a support network and having a spiritual practice--which is something that I really want to develop more--are ways to really I think counteract these--you know, and the impact on the quality of sleep that we have, our metabolism, cardiovascular risk. You know, chronic stress predisposes us to a wide range of medical conditions, so yeah. So I think when we see--you know, a lot of the disparities or inequities that we see, you know, are driven by, you know, the impact of, you know, racism, and then it sometimes has direct, you know, effects on us, in terms of, like, the violence that, you know, is committed against us by police, but then also some of these indirect effects of dealing with chronic stress and the impact that it has on our bodies and minds.Zach: And I think--so I'll speak for myself in this example. I'm an example of this, right? Like, just kind of, like, moving and shaking in these spaces, finally taking a second to breathe and I'm looking back and I'm like, "Wait, I can't sleep. I'm having, like, auditory hallucinations. I'm, like, crying for no reason. Like, I feel sick." You know, there's all these different issues that have, like, you know, over time just been so untreated, and like, so, finally just now starting to get help for that. I'm curious though, what points of recommendation would you have for folks who are at the very beginning of this? Like, and how--what would you say to them who are just kind of looking to get started and kind of advocating for themselves to get the help that they need?Oni: Right. So I think, you know, obviously having a support network obviously is key, and so that people who are close to you, who you can speak to about, you know, the various stressors that you may have at work, in particular if you may be one of a few black people, or even if you aren't one of a few black or brown people. You know, our experiences in the workplace are very different from other people's. So definitely having a support network, and I think also not waiting for people to check in on you, but also to the extent that you can sharing with, like, your family and loved ones, particularly those who will be helpful, like, how you are feeling, 'cause I think sometimes, for many of us, we are very high-functioning, and so when you--you may be depressed, feeling depression and anxiety, but you are, like, highly productive. You're getting things done. You have a family. You have a great job. But, you know, you still need support, and it may not be, like, overtly obvious to your family. So I think, to the extent that we can, reaching out when we can. Obviously, you know, for instance, depression can sometimes impact people's ability to motivate and to be able to reach out to people, so obviously then we have to check on each other. I think also something that I have been increasingly learning is having some sort of, like, spiritual practice or some way of, like, grounding yourself, whether it's yoga or meditation or prayer. Whatever it is or whoever you pray to, having that be a regular part of your day and of your practice is I think incredibly important, because, like, you know, it's very hard to change these systems, and for the most part we have ourselves and we have our support networks. And so those are some of the recommendations that I would have. And I think also mentorship. If folks have mentors who, you know, have been in similar fields, or maybe even in a different field but can provide guidance and support, that makes a huge, huge difference. And also peer mentors as well, having folks who may be going through similar experiences as you where you can kind of commune and, like, come together and commiserate and also be helpful.Zach: You know, it's interesting. So you talked a little bit about your twin sister Dr. Uche Blackstock, and recently she published an article titled "Why Black Doctors Like Me Are Leaving Faculty Positions In Academic Medical Centers," and in the piece, towards the end of it, she says, "Academic medical centers must begin to recognize and rectify the historical and current impact of racism on the health care workforce. Their leaders should listen actively and respond accordingly to the concerns of black faculty members and students, adopt an anti-racist philosophy, and, through a lens of racial equity, intentionally commit the time, effort and resources required to dismantle the structural racism and white supremacy embedded in their current institutional cultures." Now, your work--again, we've been talking about it this entire conversation--is to combat the attitudes and white supremacist institutions that not only create but thrive off of inequity. I'm curious, in your mind, what incentives do these institutions have to actually make substantive, long-standing institutional changes?Oni: Yeah, that's a really tough question. You know, I think what we see motivates folks in society tends to be financial incentives, so I think if there is something in it, like, sort of profit-wise for these institutions, like, that can be helpful. I really don't know, because I think, you know, for many of these institutions--you know, I work at a government agency. The government has played a role for more than a century or two, probably several centuries, in perpetuating, you know, racist policies, and I think--you know, nowadays obviously we want to do the right thing and rectify things, but there's still--you know, the workplace here reflects what we see outside. Like, the public health department isn't immune from the inequities that we see outside, and I think that it requires really visionary leadership and commitment to change, but what it also requires is, like, white people to step to the side and there to be more leadership opportunities for black and brown people, and I think that's really a struggle. I think people support the idea of equity in theory, but then in practice it looks really different. I think, even just from conversations I had today with some of my staff, you know, in practice it can feel very uncomfortable. I think there's that saying, like, "When you're used to privilege, equity feels like oppression," or something like that. Yeah, so it's like, you know, when the going gets rough and you're really wanting to institute these changes, I mean, there's gonna be--there's tremendous pushback and resistance, and they're the reason why things have stayed the way that they are. So I have to be honest, I don't have, like, an answer. I would be curious to know about institutions that have had transformations and have done this well. It's a process. I know here at the agency, at the health department in New York City, you know, since Dr. Bassett came in 2014, and then the initiative started I believe in 2015, you know, it's slow-going, because these are, like, processes and structures that have been in place for centuries that we're now trying to undo. So I think--there's this organization that we work with called Race Forward, and they talk about equity being both a process and an outcome, and so we try to emphasize the process part, because people often want to see, you know, concrete change, and where there's an opportunity to show concrete change we try to, but we realize that this work takes a long time.Zach: So, you know, out of respect to the time, you know, I haven't been putting a lot of sound effects in, but let me just tell you, you've been casually dropping crazy Flex bombs this entire interview. So I just want to react to that. [Flex bomb sfx] You was also lighting 'em up like [blatblatblat sfx], you know what I'm saying? [both laugh]Oni: Wow, that's impressive.Zach: Thank you very much. I appreciate it. That was also Cardi B, ladies and gentlemen.Oni: Oh, I love her.Zach: [Cardi B "ow" sfx] All right, so let's do this. Before we let you go, we typically give folks space, shout-outs, parting words. What you got for us?Oni: Wow. Okay, so I would say that I'm sure many of your listeners or people who have been quite successful by this society's standards, and I think often, like, we use, you know, degrees and job titles and stuff to, you know, say how successful we've been, but what I realized, you know, with the different leadership opportunities I've had, the different degrees I've gotten, it's really about finding happiness. I know it sounds really hackneyed and trite, but really doing the internal work to be happy regardless of whether you have, like, these accolades or not, because, like, my leadership job here and my degrees aren't gonna keep me, like--you know, happy at night, you know? Like, it's really believing in myself and that, you know, regardless of whether I'm working in a clinic, whether I'm leading the Bureau of HIV in the health department, I still--you know, I am really the work of, like, all of my ancestors who came before me. I, like, represent everything that they have been through, so to then think about success in, like, this white supremacist framework would not be something that they would be happy about. So I just try to, like, think about, you know, the family members and [?] that got me here and really about my own self-worth and happiness and not to measure that by these different accolades and positions and degrees.Zach: Wow. You know what? Just shout-out to you. Like, this is incredible. You know, there are people--I will say this as we wrap up--you know, there are people that I--that Living Corporate and myself individually, but also, like, our team, will, like, look for to get on the platform, and we'll look at their social media and we'll be like, "Dang, they look like they're real spicy on social media," then they get on the podcast and they're not as spicy. It's kind of like, "Come on, what are you doing?" But, like, I feel like you have matched, if not exceeded, your spiciness. Like, if I was to rate it, like, it is higher. Like, three curry goats, like, [?]. Anyway, it's great. All right, now, look, y'all. This has been dope. Y'all know what we do. We're having these conversations every single week, coming to y'all with dope conversations. This has been Zach. You have been talking to Dr. Blackstock, okay? Dr. Blackstock is the assistant commissioner of the NYC Department of Health & Mental Hygiene, focusing on HIV prevention and research and study, doing all the amazing things up in New York. Let's see here. What else? You know, check us out on Instagram @LivingCorporate, Twitter @LivingCorp_Pod, and check us out on our website www.living-corporate.com--please say the dash. We do livingcorporate.co, livingcorporate.tv, livingcorporate.org, .net. We have all of the livingcorporates. 'Cause, see, people hit me up, Dr. Blackstock, and they'll be like, "What's the website?" And I'm like, "Look, it's livingcorporate.co or living-corporate.com," but people go livingcorporate.com, and then it pops up some Australian website, and I'm like, "Look, we don't have that domain. We have all the other domains." So you gotta make sure--you know, you gotta keep with us. You know, don't slow down. Keep up. You might get left behind. So my biggest thing right now is I want y'all to make sure y'all check the show notes, y'all look at the research and the work that Dr. Blackstock is doing. Make sure that you educate for yourself, advocate for yourself, shoot, and stay courageous out here. Did y'all hear all the stuff she was saying? Casually. She works for the government and she's talking about white supremacy. What you talking about? She's not scared, you know what I mean? Ain't nobody coming up here talking about [Law and Order sfx], you know? She's not afraid, okay? She's ready.Oni: And Zach, can I just say really quickly just as--I don't know if I'm an OG now 'cause I'm over 40, but I just want to say that I'm incredibly proud of you and this effort that you have and your Living Corporate podcast. It's really wonderful to see young people just thriving, so congratulations.Zach: Oh, my goodness. Well, look, we're both thriving, and I'm just over here like [look at us sfx]. You know? That's a Paul Rudd reference, everybody. Okay. All right, y'all. 'Til next time. This has been Zach. Again, you've been listening to me chop it up with Dr. Blackstock. 'Til next time. Peace.

Zach welcomes Texas State Senator Royce West, D-Dallas, to the podcast in this very special episode! Senator West discusses why he thinks Texas is ready to shift blue and what makes him the right choice to accelerate that process, and he also shares what he believes needs to happen for the next generation to have any reasonable chance of inclusion in this new economy. Additionally, he stresses the massive importance of voting in 2020. Remember, the reality is that our vote is our voice, so make sure your voice is heard this year! Connect with Senator West on Twitter, Instagram and Facebook, and don't forget to check out his website.Visit Living-Corporate.com.TRANSCRIPTZach: What's up, y'all? It's Zach with Living Corporate, and we know. We know. It's a Saturday. Typically you're used to hearing either a Link Up with Latesha or Amy C. Waninger and her See It to Be It series. However, we have a special guest, special treat, special situation happening this time, that's right, where we actually have an elected official on the podcast, and his name is Royce West. He's a state senator representing District 23 as a Democrat. He's actually been in office since 1993. So think about 1993... I was born in 1989, right? So he's been around for a while, and he's been doing his thing for a while. This is not even an official endorsement of any particular candidate, but rather, as a platform that seeks to amplify underrepresented voices, that also means underrepresented voices in our political system, and state senator Royce West is actually a black man in Texas state politics, so a fairly unique perspective and experience. In addition to that, y'all, 2020 November is coming up, and it's important that we actually are aware of the issues and some of the things that are on the ballot this year, because the things that are passed in Congress directly impact us. And I'm saying us. I'm talking to you, black or brown person. I'm talking to you, marginalized person. I'm talking to you, non-white straight Christian able-bodied male. It's really important, I believe, that we participate and engage in this political process. I understand there are various points and opinions in terms of what it looks like to radically change or impact or create an impact. I do believe that participating in our political process and exercising our civic duties is something we should do, right? And so what you're gonna hear when we have this conversation, I tried to ask Senator West some fairly direct questions, and my hope is that this will be the first of many elected officials we're able to get on the platform to have real talk in a corporate world, and real talk in a world that impacts us everywhere, including at work, right? So the next thing you're going to hear is the conversation I had with Senator West, and after that we're gonna wrap it up. Catch y'all next time.Zach: Senator West, it's a pleasure and an honor to have you on the Living Corporate podcast. Just to get started, many people are saying that Texas is truly the premiere battleground state, right? So goes Texas, so goes the nation regarding tilting red or blue. There's been an accelerated attempt to speed that up, right? So we've seen that with Wendy and Beto's campaign being most notable in that regard. With that let me ask you though - do you think Texas is ready to shift blue, and if so, what makes you the right choice for that?Royce: I do think it's ready, and it's dependent upon who the presidential nominee is. When you begin to kind of look at attitudes of people here in Texas, be they Democrats, Republicans, Independents, they're more aligned, frankly, with a moderate to conservative, moderate to left-leaning Democrat. When you begin to look at gun issues, health care issues, those types of issues, which are important--women's issues, civil rights issues, [?]. Those things are important to people, and so from my vantage point I think ideologically people are ready, and then when you begin to look at the changing demographics in Texas and the uptick in voting amongst Latinos, Latinx now. We have the numbers in order to win state-wide elections now.Zach: So, you know, what has been the greatest advantage, and maybe one of the bigger challenges, in being a black man in Texas state politics?Royce: Well, you know, it's both ways. I mean, the fact is that racism is still alive and well - not to the extent it has been in the past. I think that, in terms of me as an individual, I am still susceptible to those racist hits, but I'm betting that most people will look at my track record in terms of things that I've done, and based on my experience they'll know exactly what I'm gonna be doing in the future concerning representing them on issues that are important to them, like health care, women's rights, education, criminal justice.Zach: You know, one of the reasons that podcasts are blowing up as a communication medium that the guests typically who come on these types of platforms, they're unfiltered, right? Like, we're able to see who these guests are beyond the veneer of the typical talking points, and so, you know, Senator West, you're speaking to young black and brown folks, working professionals, millennials, within Texas and beyond. So, like, with that in mind, why should they believe you?Royce: Well, I think, again, look at my track record, and let's just talk about the issues unique to the audience here. What you will see, over the 26 years that I've been a state senator, [is that] I've been very much in tune with issues concerning millennials and the audience that you have more specifically. I made sure that the college students--young people that go to college as an example that live in my senatorial district, which is the Dallas area, we've provided some internships, paid internship opportunities for them. Not just any old internship. The fact is is that we what we've tried to do, and somewhat successfully, is to match their major in college to the summer internship paid opportunity, and as a result of that, what you'll see is that I've been able to create over 3,000 internship opportunities [for] the students that live in my district, and some outside of the district. And so they've been able to develop their resume, and as a result of developing that resume in many instances landed a job with the person or the business that they were doing the internship with. And not only that, Zach, we have persons who are now elected officials. Doctors, lawyers, teachers, police officers, you name it, that will come out of that particular program. And let me just kind of reach back a little further. We don't just start right there in college. We reach back to middle school. We have a student advisory committee comprised--and some of in the audience may identify with this--comprised of student leaders, defined as student government. That's where I start off, in the 7th grade student government, and other student leaders on campus to make certain that I'm keeping my ear to the ground and using them as a sounding board for policies that I need to be dealing with. And I can tell you that some of those policies deal with issues concerning criminal justice, concerning economic development, concerning making certain that there's a pipeline so they can develop, and I've addressed those issues and will continue to do so. "What are you talking about, Senator West?" We've made certain that we've had--and there's a political issue. I don't get a lot of appointments by the governor's office because I'm a Democrat, but we've tried to make certain that we identify young persons that we can put on boards and commissions, because that's how you learn leadership abilities, okay? You sharpen your skills to become leaders. We have dealt with issues concerning criminal justice. I have been a prosecutor and also a defense attorney, and I've had some top of the notch defense cases as well as prosecutorial cases, and so what I know is this - regardless of how old you are, you want the ability to be able to call the police officers, but you don't want to have to second-guess you calling that officer. And so what I've attempted to do is to make certain that there is a third option in terms of evidence, because--you know, getting through a scrap with a police officer, it's gonna be your word against theirs. So when you look at Texas, body cameras, dash cameras, all of those things are responsive to your audience's questions and things that they want me to do, and so we've dealt with those types of things. When you begin to look at the issue concerning student debt, I've worked feverishly to reduce the cost of books, to make certain they use open resource materials--and I still haven't gotten it to the point where I want to, because when you begin to look at the books and the cost of books--all of us know they cost a lot of money, and so if you use open resource materials, all of that stuff is online. And guess what? It's more up to date than a book, and it costs less than a book. But needless to say, the book industry still has its thumb on the scales, and until we can get that thumb off the scales we won't see a significant reduction in the cost of books, but it's starting to move in that direction. In terms of the cost of education, what I've been able to do is to work in the state of Texas to get the Texas grants program, to make certain that students that graduate with at least a C average, most of them get an opportunity to get a grant--not a loan, a grant--to go to school. As long as they're maintaining their academic standing, they're able to continue to get that grant. And that's just--it doesn't pay for the whole educational experience. It pays for some. In terms of the issue concerning the cost of education and getting in and getting out of school--and I heard this from community college students. They believe in many parts, Zach, that they're taking the courses necessary to make sure that when they go to a university it will apply towards their graduation, only to find out that when they go to the university it doesn't apply, and they end up having to take another course in order to get the pre-requisites in order to graduate. This past legislative session, I was able to pass a bill to make certain that the higher education coordinating board in Texas begins looking at that issue and making certain that students get the right counseling and the right course sequence in order to make sure that the courses they're taking in community college will in fact apply towards their ultimate degree once they get into a university. I guess I could go on and on, but that's how I've been trying to make certain that I address the issues, the many issues, that your audience has. They may have more, and I'd be more than happy to address those too.Zach: Let's continue forward when we talk about this same audience. You know, it's easy for black and brown folks, I think, to look at the current slate of candidates and see that the Democratic Party does not prioritize their voice and representation. And I think this is a pretty ongoing critique, right, as you look at millennial black and brown folks. Like, that's been a critique for decades, and not just of young black and brown folks but of black and brown folks by and large. I think, with this in mind, why do you believe it's important for this group to vote in 2020 if the alternative is just going to be another person that's going to ultimately ignore them?Royce: Well, you know, this is the thing, and this is what I want your audience to recognize. Look at who's the most experienced person in this race and ask yourself, if you're getting ready to go into surgery, do you want an experienced surgeon or do you want a new face, okay? If you want a new face to do your surgery, I'm not that new face. I'm the most experienced doctor to go into that operation with, and so you should want someone who does that, that has your back, that has a track record of dealing with issues that you think important. This election--and I kid you not, in terms of my lifetime and your lifetime it's the most important election that we have--we are seeing our fundamental governmental institutions under severe attack. We have a person in office by the name of Donald Trump that has frankly demeaned the office of president. We have a president that's constantly called a liar each and every day. You have a U.S. senator in the state of Texas, and probably many other states, that for some reason won't say anything at all. They just cower and allow him to do what he wants to do. I mean, the latest thing about firing the head of the--I think it was the National Security Agency, whichever one it was, because that person briefed Congress concerning Russian interference. He fired him. He fired a couple of persons that testified during the impeachment because they were subpoenaed to come testify and they told the truth. They got fired as a result of it. I've never seen this happen before in my lifetime. I've never seen senators who represent, in this case, some 28 million, 29 million people here in the state of Texas, just cower and say nothing. And so what I say to those persons in the listening audience, if you want to see a monarchy, then don't vote, because I assure you that if Trump gets four more years--listen to me now, you ain't--you heard what I said--you ain't seen nothing yet.Zach: [laughs] So let's talk a little bit more about the DNC and your work in this particular election for U.S. Senate. So if you were in a private conversation with the national DNC chairman and the DNC finance committee, what would you tell them to do more of or do differently to turn Texas blue?Royce: Put more investment into the state of Texas. [?] think of Texas an ATM. This is ground zero for the Congressional Democratic legislative caucus. Nancy, the speaker of the house, has basically said this is ground zero for investing in turning some of these Congressional seats blue. Nancy Pelosi has done a great job. She has demonstrated steel and wants to make these seats in Texas, Congressional seats, turn blue. We need nine seats in the U.S. Senate. This is one of them, and I want to make certain that persons that are listening understand that once we win Texas, that's gonna be, like, 38 Electoral College votes. And to the extent that we continue to have an Electoral College, that's very meaningful. And so that's why people are starting to look at Texas differently, if you will, as it relates to winning the state, because it will be just like California in terms of the Electoral College votes and ends up being blue. Just one example. You look at the metropolitan communities. Republicans have given up on metropolitan communities. You know why? Because we're voting. You look at Dallas County. Dallas County in 2006 went blue, and I provided leadership in getting that done, and now we're dark blue. The surrounding suburban communities are beginning to become blue, bluer, and I would venture to say that this election view will see Colin County, [?] Plano, Frisco, places like that will also go blue. Look at Harris County. Look at [H-Town?] Look at Ford Bend County. All of those counties are going blue, and so to the extent that you want to make sure that we change the government--if for some reason you believe that health care is a basic right, you need Democrats as a president, you need Democrats in Congress, in both branches of Congress, the Senate and also the House, and we'll make it a priority. To the extent that you believe that we need to have a public school system in the United States, not one where we have someone that's trying to privatize it. Then we need to elect a pro-public school president, and that president then turns around, Zach, and appoints a pro-public school secretary of education. If you believe that our environment is--that climate change is real... it's February and it's almost 80 degrees where I am. If you believe that's real, then we've got to make certain that we elect a pro-climate change president that will put in place an EPA administrator that it also pro-climate change. So that's how we get things done. That's how we get things done. We've got to make certain that we show up and that we participate. We've got over a trillion dollar deficit now. We have a debt of over $23 trillion, okay? That debt will be saddled on our grandchildren and our great-grandchildren, and so you've got to make certain that you understand that. It's not just about a party over here or a party over there. You've got to get in, sit down at the table, otherwise we're gonna end up being on the table as part of the meal. Zach: So, you know, it's interesting, both right and left--you talked about being part of the meal and some of the critical issues, and you've talked a bit about education and you've talked about health care as well. Talk a little bit more about the economy. So both right and left mainstream punditry is describing our economy as healthy, but the actual facts show that the black community has yet to recover from the recession in 2008 and, overall, that black wealth is trending to zero dollars in the next 20 to 30 years, right?Royce: Well, I mean, what is the major asset that we have in our portfolios to help us show wealth? Our homes. You look at home purchasing, it's down in the African-American community. That's part of our wealth right there. You look at--repossessions are still up, and the ability to be able to get loans--we still have redlining going on. Those things are real, and the thing that perturbs me is that we haven't been able to get anything done yet about it. We haven't been able to get anything done about it yet, and that's why we've got to make sure that we get out and vote. You take, like, Maxine Waters. Maxine is on it, okay? And for those of you who don't know Maxine Waters is, she heads up the Financial Services Committee. She's on it. And so those are the types of champions that we need. And I don't want to hear all this stuff that she's old. She's an expert, okay? In this area. She knows what she's doing, and so that's why it's important that I connect with you, that you look at my records and determine whether or not you want someone with experience to go up and help Maxine out to get some things done. And let me say this. If you ask anyone in the state of Texas who is a champion of minority business and women-owned businesses, my name will be a part of that conversation, 'cause every year I get state agencies to work with minority business organizations to hold a fair, a purchasing fair, and I think, like, last year--I may be wrong on this--the purchasing fair, the day of the purchasing fair, we probably did about $9 million, and I've been doing that year after year after year. Ask [?] here in Dallas. She'll tell you exactly what the Senate has done. And in terms of legislation, I've made certain that we handle legislation in Texas to have a minority business enterprise program--we call it HUBs, Historically Underutilized Businesses. That's part of the things that I've done, and I invite people to the table to make certain that they get an opportunity to interact with those chairman officers that are responsible for the purchasing.Zach: So the mainstream party is talking about all of these new innovations in our digital economy as if that's the solution, but how is it a solution to the younger black and brown community who has yet to receive the educational and social capital to access the space, which, despite comments from some presidential candidates, there is actually an established interest. So my question is what needs to happen for this next generation to have any reasonable chance of inclusion in this new economy?Royce: Well, you've got to take care of getting that education. And this is what I see. I see that African-Americans and [Latinas?] are more aggressive in terms of getting that education than the males are. Gotta make certain that that happens, and if you noticed, if you have an African-American or Latino male that's on their game, they get the opportunity more often than not now. Now, I understand there's still racism, but as an example, I was at a luncheon for the Dallas Foundation today. We had one African-American male [?], $1.3 million in scholarship opportunities. So they have to take advantage of that. And I understand that we still have a lot of our kids in [?] households, and may very well be in households where neither parent or the single parent didn't go to college or didn't graduate from high school, and so to the extent that we have those types of situations, we've gotta have the 100 Black Men, Omega Psi Phi, the fraternities--AKAs, Alphas, all of us pushing those types of programs. And yes, there will be some that we miss, but we've got to do our best in order to make certain that we provide an example and also make certain we provide opportunities. Zach: That's really helpful. So millennial and Generation Z black and brown voters in this cycle keep being told that we all have to make compromises in order to beat Trump, which often means accepting candidates that have troubling racial records. Should we make that trade off, and if so, why?Royce: You know, that's a heck of a question. [Zach laughs] I'd frankly say anybody except Trump, you know? And it kind of depends to me on exactly, you know, how contrite that person is, okay, and what they've done independent of those particular actions. You take, like, Bloomberg. What has he done? You've got to make up your mind in terms of the types of programs he has engaged in. Even though we have the stop-and-frisk program, whether or not those types of programs show, in addition to his apology, that he's real and we won't have to worry about those types of issues again. So you've got to kind of look at a person's background. Don't just listen to what they say, kind of look at what they've done since being involved in those comments or actions [?].Zach: That's really helpful. Often times, the quality of education today seems to have more to do with the value of your home or where you live than it does your actual work ethic. So my question to you is what are you going to do when asked to confirm the next secretary of education to ensure that that changes?Royce: First of all, I'm gonna look at their background, okay? And yes, I agree with you wholeheartedly. I'm from the projects of Dallas, 4968 [?] Place, and used to play basketball in a garbage can and was satisfied doing that up against the wall, and so I understand your environment. But one thing that I had, I had work ethic, and, you know, developing that early on helped me tremendously. I was a paperboy. I had 425 papers every day, not knowing that that was developing the work ethic in me, and that helped me along the way. So you've got to develop the work ethic, and you've got to make certain that you have mentors for a lot of these young men and women to make sure that they understand that just because we fall down, we get up, and, you know, if we fall down again, we get up again, and we continue to do that. And so we've got to make sure we have a secretary of education that understands that we are in fact our brother's keeper and that they're responsible for a generation and generations yet unborn that may very well--listen to me on this, Zach--may very well end up colonizing the Moon, okay? And we've got to make sure that our kids are prepared for that. We've got to make certain that those kids in the barrios, in the ghettos, in suburban communities are prepared for that, and we've got to make certain that it's inclusive as opposed to exclusive.Zach: Senator West, this has been a great interview. I really appreciate you taking the time to speak with us here. Before we let you go, any parting words?Royce: No. Again, I encourage--first of all, thank you for this program, and I encourage your listening audience to make sure that you get out and vote. You know, the reality is that our vote is our voice, and I gotta get out of here. Zach: All right, now. Talk to you later. Peace.Royce: Take care.

Zach has the honor of speaking with Howard Bryant, an award-winning author and senior writer at ESPN, about what prompted him to write his latest book, Full Dissidence, and how he landed on the title, and Howard also talks a bit about some of the differences between power and money. Howard also touches on his coverage of Colin Kaepernick's workout, and he graciously shares his concerns about the direction of this country, particularly in the area of journalism.Connect with Howard on Twitter, Instagram, and LinkedIn, and don't forget to check out his website.Learn more about Howard's latest book, Full Dissidence, by clicking here.Interested in finding out more about Howard's other books? Click here to be redirected to his Amazon page.Visit our website!TRANSCRIPTZach: What's up, y'all? It's Zach with Living Corporate, and you know what we do. Every single week we're having real talk in a corporate world. We do that by what? Having authentic conversations with black and brown thought leaders, activists, educators, executives, recruiters, entrepreneurs, anybody really who's willing to center underrepresented experiences in the workplace. And man, I'm just really excited, because this week we have Howard Bryant on the podcast. Howard Bryant is the author of nine books, the most recent being Full Dissidence: Notes From an Uneven Playing Field, and he's contributed essays to 14 others. He is a two-time Casey Award winner for best baseball book of the year, and a 2003 finalist for the Society for American Baseball Research Seymour Medal. The Heritage was the recipient of the 2019 Nonfiction Award from the American Library Association’s Black Caucus and the Harry Shaw and Katrina Hazard Donald Award for Outstanding Work in African American Studies awarded by the Popular Culture Association. He has been a senior writer for ESPN since 2007 and has served as the sports correspondent for NPR’s Weekend Edition Saturday since 2006. In 2017, he served as the guest editor for the Best American Sports Writing anthology. He has won numerous awards, as y'all should've heard by now, [laughs] and he was a finalist for the National Magazine Award in 2016 and 2018, both for commentary, and earned the 2016 Salute to Excellence Award from the National Association of Black Journalists. In addition, Mr. Bryant has appeared in several documentaries, including Baseball: The Tenth Inning and Jackie Robinson, both directed by Ken Burns, and Major League Legends: Hank Aaron, produced by the Smithsonian and Major League Baseball. Mr. Bryant, welcome to the show, man. How are you doing?Howard: I'm good. Thank you for having me.Zach: Man, thank you for being here. Let me start off by saying I was familiar with your work because, you know, I'm an ESPN consumer, but it was over the past few months in your--and really, like, frankly the past over a year or so of your coverage of Kaepernick, but particularly the workout that had me really investigate your work and pre-order Full Dissidence. Can we talk a little bit about what prompted you to write this book and how you got to the title for the book?Howard: Well, I think that the first question is... I think time, you know, got me--when you work on projects and when you write, it's an organic process in so many different ways. You don't really even know what you're gonna be working on, but the environment around you begins to dictate an urgency, and things start telling you that, "Okay, these are subjects--" As I always say, if an idea comes and goes, it's really not that important. If it keeps staying with you and keeps staying with you, then you have to pay attention to it. And what was happening I think in this country, if you start to look at the accumulation of the election of Barack Obama followed by Trayvon Martin followed by Jordan Davis and Ferguson and Eric Garner and all of these different things that were happening, also then followed by Kaepernick and then followed by the election of Donald Trump. You've got so many issues here that you have to pay attention to, and especially as African-Americans, you feel certainly that--the racial component of all of these ideas hit you close to home. They're not just topics. It's not just a subject for you. And I think for me what was really becoming more and more clear was that they were all connected and that the connectedness of it told you that there was something else happening that you need to explore, especially--to be more specific, I would think certainly the 2016 election made me think--it made me re-examine the relationship that I had with my white friends and my white colleagues and the people that I grew up with and all of these folks that you associate with who, in so many different ways, would want you to believe and that you would want to believe were your friends for life or that you had great relationships with and that you had great professional relationships with, and then you get to a place like this, you know, election-wise, and you start to see the gap, or when you start talking to your white colleagues about policing and you start hearing how wide the gap is between you, and then you start looking at the gap as well between what was being said about--you know, about America and its post-racial potential during the Obama administration, and then you go from that to this presidency. It just made me look at all of these different components as a black man, and you had to start reassessing the relationships and what they meant and what it meant for me personally.Zach: Man, that's just a really--well, thank you for that and the context. You're absolutely right. I recall--it's interesting because I've had long-standing relationships with white folks, and I recall during the election, leading up to it and then of course after the results, having certain conversations that I just made a presumption that we agreed about or that I would just think that--Howard: "We're on the same side."Zach: [laughs] Right? And then you have a conversation or you say something and you say--you know, you have a point of view on something that's pretty pointed or matter-of-fact, and then not to get that same level of acknowledgement back almost like--you know, you might say something like, "You know, this is clearly wrong," and then, you know, you get back a "Well, is it? I don't know." Howard: They're like, "Oh, is it really clearly wrong?" Yeah. I mean, for me the first moment of it was October 1st, 2008, and I remember this specifically because I was driving to Logan Airport in Boston. I was going down to Atlanta to go to Hank Aaron's house. I was interviewing him for my Hank Aaron biography, so I remember the date clearly. And I was on the phone with a friend of mine who I had known since we were in middle school, and she was--you know, she's a white woman, and I'm driving to the airport, and we were talking, and at some point she sort of said out loud that Sarah Palin was far more qualified to be president than Barack Obama, and that stopped me--I almost drove off the road.Zach: That would've stopped me dead. [laughs]Howard: Right? So that was the first moment where it was like, "You know what? You can't assume anything," and it really started to begin this reassessment. And it wasn't simply that we had differences of opinion. You can vote for whoever you want to vote for and I can vote for whoever I want to vote for, but the issue was more about values, and it was more about what's being said and how white people are able to balance these viewpoints and the values of these people that they're supporting and still be able to consider themselves great, great, close friends with black people, and it struck me that the reason why they're able to do this is because for them race and politics and these things, they're just topics. It's just a subject, and--Zach: They're like thought exercises, right?Howard: Well, exactly. And it may be more to them on some level, that it's not just a topic because you care about the dolphins or you care about the environment or you care about whatever, but what it is is that they're able to co-exist. They're not line-in-the-sand "I can't hang out with you" issues. It's like, "Okay." The thing that had struck me was the number of times that you've had people talk about, during the impeachment, the end of democracy, and they would use these apocalyptic terms. You know, January 21st, 2020, the day democracy died, and then in the very next sentence talk about, you know, "I can't believe how my Trump-loving friends are--" You know? I'm like, "Well, wait a minute. If you're able to break bread with these folks, and you're able to just flip the switch that it's a difference of opinion, then it's not apocalyptic." Apocalyptic means I need to make life and death choices here. I need to make survival or non-survival choices. That's what apocalyptic means to me. It means the apocalypse is coming, right? And so for me I was realizing that as a black man and as a writer and somebody who thinks about these issues as more than just topics, I wanted to re-assess the people in my life, and I wanted to re-assess these issues, and I wanted--and I think one of the things in the book that was so important to me was in that re-assessment I couldn't help but keep coming back to the importance of where Colin Kaepernick fit in this in the first chapter. I remember right when the election hit I said to a bunch of friends, "A lot of relationships are gonna change after this day," and I was really in some ways talking about myself. But what I meant about Kaepernick is here was a guy who hadn't played football since 2016 and yet he still finds himself completely at the center of the culture. He still creates or elicits such an enormous physical response from people, and my question in that first essay, what Colin Kaepernick taught us, was really to ask one major question. I mean, there's a bunch of different ideas in that essay, but one of the overarching questions for me was why is it so important for this culture to destroy this man? It's bad enough that he's not playing football, the fact that when Nike rehabilitated him with just a commercial, one 90-second commercial, you had people trying to boycott Nike. Zach: Burning it. Burning clothes.Howard: Exactly. You had people--and they weren't just people, they were law enforcement, retailers, people in the mainstream. People in positions of authority.Zach: Institutions, yeah.Howard: Exactly, going out of their way to make sure that this man didn't have anything. So you didn't want him--so it's bad enough that he's not gonna play, right? Okay, so he lost his livelihood there. You don't even want him to have a source of income.Zach: "We gotta destroy his character."Howard: Yeah. Well, I wanted to ask this question - "Why is this so important?" I mean, supposedly this is America where everybody is able to have their opinions and that's what makes us different from these other countries, you know? They don't lock you up and kill your family and do all of these different things for disagreeing with government or disagreeing with institutions, and yet you're trying to destroy him. You're not trying to take his life, but you're trying to take his livelihood, and that struck me as important.Zach: Howard, it's interesting, you know--the line you just said, "Why is it so important that we destroy this man?" That was something that you actually said--you said it on air, [laughs] and so--Howard: Yeah, on Stephen A.'s show. Zach: Yeah. [laughs] It seemed like you were, like, the--it was, like, you and I'ma say Bomani Jones were, like, for me, the only black men I saw in media initially, right? So people came back. Like, other folks--Shannon Sharpe came back and he said, "I was wrong," but initially you and Bomani Jones were the only black male voices that I heard in the sports space, like, either defend or objectively discuss Kaepernick when the whole workout situation came up. Was there tension there because of that? It just seemed--and maybe because of me, I'm on the outside looking in as a consumer, 'cause I really--I was watching, and it was your tweet thread that I was sharing with all of my friends and my colleagues and my network and everything about "Hey, this is what's going on. Look at what Howard Bryant is saying. He was there at the workout," but it seemed as if you were, like, one of, again, two voices really not kind of following the same cadence of questioning Kaepernick's content, questioning his motivations, questioning his ability. Am I off-base by saying that?Howard: No, you're not, and I was concerned--and let's be honest, you know? I'm concerned about the direction of this country, and if you are concerned about the direction of the country, you have to be triply concerned about the position of black people. Because if things are going bad, you know we're gonna get it worse. And so to me, one of the areas where I had the most concern is in our journalism. It's very basic stuff, and I was concerned, and disappointed in so many ways, during, you know, my time down there in Atlanta and the coverage that followed, because I didn't do anything remarkable. I did what we're trained to do. It's simply journalism. But it shows you where we are in the culture. It shows you where we are as a country. If people treated that like there was some--like I went above and beyond the call of my job. I just did my job. That was it. The job was to go down there and find out what was happening and talk to people and find out what the deal was. That's it. It wasn't like it took any great deal of courage to go do that. You went down there, you talked to both sides, you found out what both sides' positions were, and you recognize--because we're not, you know, stenographers, you don't [write?] them both equally. You also put your brain in the middle of it, and you filter out what is accurate, what is inaccurate, and sort of how this deal and how this workout fell apart. The problem was, and the problem is of course, that Colin Kaepernick is a lightning rod in so many ways, but you also have a media that is so tilted towards the powerful. You've got rights holders. You've got relationships. You've got business relationships that, you know, are going to overwhelm, in some ways, the journalism. I had an interview the other day and somebody said to me, "Well, I think on balance, when you look at everything, Colin Kaepernick has really been lauded and appreciated and celebrated by media," and I was like, "Are you out of your mind?"Zach: That's not true at all.Howard: I said, "I find Colin Kaepernick's position to have been distorted from Day One."Zach: Absolutely. Yes.Howard: Because every person that goes out there and talks about the military when Colin is talking about policing is inherently distorting his message. If you're talking about, you know, being American or un-American, you're distorting his message. I never felt like he was being treated fairly in any of this because the message kept getting distorted, and we're supposedly very, very smart people, so it's not that complicated a message. Zach: You know, and it's interesting because--so to your point around distorting the message, even from the jump when he said, "Look, I'm protesting police brutality and white supremacy in this country," I don't recall anyone ever zooming in on the white supremacy part, like, in the punditry or the media talking heads, right? Like, we would zoom on--Howard: Well, why would they? They're the bulls-eye. He's indicting them. He wasn't indicting police only, he was indicting them as well, and I think that one of the big issues that struck me in this entire sort of story, and also one of the reasons for writing the book, was the fact that the idea--over the course of my lifetime, all 51 years of it, the American flag was always a symbol of aspiration, just like the Statue of Liberty is a symbol of aspiration. "Come here and you can do better. Come here and you can improve. Come here and you can go as far as your ability and talent takes you," and it was always aspirational when it came to race. Even, you know, your white friends would look at you and go, "Yeah, I know it's not fair, but we're better than we were," and "I know it's not--you know, this isn't right, and we've got a long way to go, but we're better than we were," right? That was always the message that was sent to me. Today the flag is no longer aspirational. The flag is a symbol to be obeyed, and if you don't obey it, you're un-American, you're a traitor, you don't deserve anything, and that is a fundamental shift. And that is a fundamental shift that I would point back to 9/11. And so when you start looking at what this country is, if the attitude is "If you do not obey, then you are a traitor," then what does that mean for black people, where the rules and the laws have needed to be changed just to give you a shot at what we call the American Dream? It puts us in an incredibly difficult position and, in a lot of ways, a position where--you hear what the president has done along the Kaepernick story, which is to essentially say "Well, maybe he doesn't belong here." It's to say that you aren't American. It's a very dangerous place.Zach: Well, you're absolutely right, and going back a second, I know one thing--one thing that trips me out is when folks say, you know, "We're not what we were. We've come a long way." It's like, "Look, if where you started was y'all can't sit at a lunch table with us, y'all can't use the bathroom with us, and now we can... that's not a long way," and, you know, it's almost like if your team was--I feel like Bomani Jones said this example, like, years ago. Like, if your team was, like, 0-16 last year and now y'all are, like, 2-14, it's like... there's been progress, but is that really something that we want to celebrate? Like, we still have--we have so much further to go that why are we even talking about this? Let's just continue--Howard: And also do I consider it progress because you're willing to treat me like a human being? What did I actually earn?Zach: That part.Howard: What have I done? I mean, what has been earned here? What has been gained? So this conversation isn't between you and me. This conversation is between you and you, you know? This conversation is between you not giving me rights and you creating a culture that denied my rights and you relenting a tiny bit so now I get a little bit of rights, but my situation hasn't really changed. This is between you and the mirror. Zach: So in your book you talk about the role that fear played in NFL players not supporting Kaepernick in his protest, right? And this was interesting to me in real-time, because I am--I'm a younger professional. I can't say I'm young, Howard, 'cause I'm 30. So I'm not, like, young, but you know what I mean. Like, I'm younger.Howard: Yeah, you're pretty young.Zach: I'm pretty young, right? So I'm moving around, and this was a few years ago, so I'm in my mid-20s, and I'm looking at all this in real-time and I'm like, "Dog, these guys got--these are millionaires, right? Why are they not--you know, they have acc--" In my mind, 'cause I'm--again, I'm in my mid-20s. I'm making, like, I don't know, like, 60, $70,000, so I'm a quote-unquote "average guy," and I'm confused because I'm trying to figure out why it is that they're not speaking up, but in your essay you highlight some of the differences between, like, power and money. Can we talk about that a little bit more? Because I think it's easy for folks to presume that if you have money you naturally have some amount of power.Howard: Yeah, absolutely, and I think that what we've got here--there's a couple of things that take place, right? And you can think about this as aspirational and think about it as progress, or you can assess it in any way that you'd like, but the question that I've been asking myself is--sports is the only industry that I can think of, and that includes music and entertainment, where there is famous men and famous women who are labor but still make millions of dollars. Tom Hanks makes $20 million per picture. Samuel L. Jackson, you know, $20 million per picture, and so--you know, Scarlett Johansson it's $15 million per picture, however much she makes per movie. So these are enormous, ball player-level sums of wealth, but sports is the only occupation that I can think of where we have this assumption or this instinct that management and the front office is supposed to resemble the workforce. It really is curious in that way, because if you look at farming, and you go fly out to California, there's a whole bunch of brown, Mexican strawberry pickers out there, and nobody is looking at them and saying, "Well, damn, the workforce is 70% or 80% Latino. How come the management isn't 70 or 80% Latino?" If you go to a strip club, there's a whole bunch of women out there making a whole bunch of money for the building, but nobody is saying, "Well, how come the women don't run the business?" But we do in sports. You know, 80% black men in the NBA, 70% black men in the NFL, and we say, "Well, why aren't they running the show too?" And the reason to me is the enormous over-estimation of money. It's because they make so much money we think they have power, but they're still just labor. They're incredibly well-compensated labor, but they're still labor, and sports is the one place, you know, where we over-estimate money, and we recognize, when we get to situations like Kaepernick's or you get to situations like hiring and you recognize, "Oh, there's a limitation to the money," that they're still paying you to provide a service to them. You're still a worker. You're still labor. There isn't, in their mind, the expectation that that's gonna translate into a pathway to management or ownership. It doesn't work that way, and I think people are finding out the hard way. Like, for example, you had asked me earlier the reason for the title "Full Dissidence," and the title, you know, simply comes from this feeling of recognizing that, you know what, it's not gonna necessarily happen for me the way they've told me if I do all these right things, and I think the NFL coaches are sort of having that full dissidence moment in their occupation. They're realizing that no matter, you know, how many Rooney Rules you have or how many assistant coaching jobs and how much experience I have that "that pathway may not exist for me," and I think from a working labor, occupational standpoint, it's a cold bucket of water in the face.Zach: I agree, of course. I think it's interesting because we have been--I know that I was, by my teachers, by black, brown, and white folks alike, that, you know, if you're good enough you can out-perform racism. You can out-perform--Howard: Yeah, exactly. Bomani brought up that point as well, that nobody has ever out-performed racism.Zach: And that, you know, if you get enough dollars, that financial capital will eventually translate into some form of white capital that you can, you know, leverage to get--Howard: To get a seat at the table. I remember when I was working on The Heritage I had a fantastically honest and frank conversation with Al Sharpton about this. So we're in his office in New York, and we're talking about this, and, you know, it's a despairing conversation in some ways because you're realizing, "Okay, well, where is the pathway?" And I finally said to him--I said, "Well, you know, Rev, maybe Michael Jordan had it right. Maybe, you know, for all the criticism that Michael Jordan gets, maybe Michael Jordan realized, even though he is an owner, you know, he recognizes that there's not an open pathway to ownership and you're not necessarily gonna get a seat at the table, so maybe the goal is to simply get as much money as you possibly can, that money is the one thing that they're willing to give you. They're not gonna share the power, but they will give you the cash. So maybe you should work on getting as much of that as you can, and that's gonna buy you at least the individual and the family freedom to live a better life." And Sharpton said, "Well, you're right, you're right... but you're still a coward. Even though you may be right, that still makes you a coward." [Zach laughs] Zach: I'ma keep it a bean with you, 'cause I was talking to my people, right? And I just said--I said, "Dog, Howard Bryant is a real one, dog. Like, he's out--" And you're right, you're right. You were saying that you were just doing your job. You were just doing your job by going out there and reporting the facts, but doggone it, man, you was looking like Fred Hampton in these streets, man. Like, you were the only--Howard: Well, and that shows you where we're at though. It says less about me and more about us.Zach: Yeah, the system. No, you're absolutely right. I do feel like we're able to see the capitalistic jig really clear in sports, but do you believe that it's exclusive to sports, or do you think that, like, the patterns that we see in terms of how these systems are all--how they work together in certain ways transcends just, like, the sporting arena?Howard: No. I think that--one of the reasons why I did Full Dissidence was because there's so much overlap that you needed to pull outside of sports, that what was happening in sports is the exact same thing that's happening in the culture, and the difference is--the reason why it was important to pull some of these ideas out of sports is because people treat sports like it's the toy department. They don't treat it seriously, but yet if you took some of these exact same ideas and brought them into the workplace, into the corporate, into the white collar, then people might look at them differently, and people might view it as, "Oh, now this is serious." You know, the reason why you don't look at it very seriously in sports is because 1. sports is entertainment for a bunch of people, and 2. we dismiss sports because the players make so much money. So it's almost as if "Well, because they make money, they can't have any grievance, any gripes, any concerns, any thoughts, any contributions." So absolutely I think that things are overlapping each other, and one of the most important ways that they're overlapping is the way that the corporate side and the military side know how important sports is because you've got so many bazillion channels on TV now. You've got so many different ways that the culture is separated. Sports is the one place where everybody's watching the same thing. You watch the Super Bowl, you still got 100 million eyeballs on one event, and you don't--it's not The Tonight Show anymore, you know? Or it's not the old days where everybody's watching MASH or Happy Days or All in the Family, but when it comes to sports people are still watching, so they know that's where the eyeballs are. So sports becomes actually more important. There's a reason why, when you're watching the NFL, you see all of the flags and the fly-overs and the military and all that, because the military is actively using sports as a recruiting tool because there are so many people looking at it.Zach: So you talked about 2008. That was certainly a pivotal year. I think about 2008, and I also think about 2016, right? You had the end of an era with Obama, of this [sarcastically] post-racial utopia, and this--Howard: Which it wasn't.Zach: [laughs] Thank you for--I appreciate that, because there will be folks, Howard, who won't pick up on the sarcasm, so thank you.Howard: Mm-hmm.Zach: And then we had the formal election of Trump, right? And Kaepernick was in the forefront in the concept of his protest, the ongoing discussions about policing--a lot of those discussions came more in the center. Ta-Nehisi Coates and his writing also became more, like, actual talking points. Like, it was an interesting year for black folks, and as someone who is in professional services as a consultant, I can say that you could really see the tone of the workplace shifting too because, again, we don't live compartmentalized lives, right? Like, you know, you just talked about sports permeating and everyone looking at it, and even if you're not a sports fan, those topics are becoming more and more mainstream, and I believe that all of these things came together, and even just the tone--just the way that black and brown folks were working and showing up and even, like, topics around diversity and inclusion, they changed, right? Like, those conversations became more on the forefront. You talked about a conversation you had with Reverend Al Sharpton. Can we talk about any other shifts that you've been seeing--you know, again, we talked about even your appearance on different shows and things of that nature. Do you feel as if you've felt shifts as a black journalist dealing with either white journalists or other black journalists as it comes to concepts around dissidence?Howard: Oh, absolutely, absolutely, and I think that the problem that you have in sports is that sports has been telling you one of the biggest lies for pretty much all of our lives, that sports is the place of the meritocracy, sports is the antidote to racism, that it doesn't make a difference if you're black or white, it doesn't make a difference if you're Latino or Asian. If my score beats your score, I win, and that's the American Dream right there, right? That's why sports was at the center of integration, you know? If black people can fight in a war, how come they can't hit a baseball? Right? And whoever's got the fastest 40 time or the fastest 100 time, they win. There's your meritocracy, and yet you find out in sports, when you look at what's been taking place in this business, that it's really no different from anywhere else, and I think that the hard part that people of color, you know, especially black people find in the workforce is they're finding that that shift is hitting them directly, and it's hitting them in places where they may not have anticipated. I'm very nervous for your generation. I'm very concerned about young, black professionals in the business today, for some of them whose first election was Obama, you know? That was the first year they were eligible to vote, and the expectations that they have, and even the elites, you know? The black students who are going to the Ivy League schools and to the Harvards and also to the Dukes and the Stanfords and the rest of these--you know, Vanderbilt and these other elite schools, and then they get into the workforce, and then they find out that things haven't changed, that they thought they were different. They thought that these old ideas didn't apply to them because we had treated the Obama election as such a demarcating line, and in retrospect it turns out to have not been such a demarc--in fact, what it did was it was a retrenchment. It was a reminder historically that whenever black people receive some form of victory, the backlash is harsh and swift and very severe and very clear, and in discovering that, I wonder what your generation and what that generation of black professionals, how they're gonna deal with it, this expectation of equality, this expectation that they are going to be that first black generation where merit actually does count. And then you find out in the corporate world, you walk in, and whether we're talking about sports with the Selig Rule or the Rooney Rule or the lack of black college coaches, or then you walk into the white collar world and you realize who's getting promoted and who's not and the diversity and inclusion initiatives and all of that, and you do have to ask yourself the same question over and over again, and that is if you need a policy to tell your bosses to even--not even hire, but just to interview people, you've got major, major, major problems, and you're not anywhere near as ahead as you think you are. Zach: Howard, and that's why--and, you know, I'm not a sports journalist, right? So I would say I am a casual consumer of sports, but that's--the Rooney Rule, just from, like, a human capital, change management--'cause that's my space, right? So just from, like, a business perspective, I found the Rooney Rule to be disingenuous at its heart, because it's like, "Okay, you're just saying that we have to interview people." I don't believe that correlates to you actually hiring more people, and we have tons of evidence--and, like, it's like the Rooney Rule continues to come up every handful of years about, you know, how effective is it really, and yet we haven't changed it. But it's like, "You creating some formal rules to interview typically black men for these coaching roles doesn't actually address the heart of the matter, which is that you don't inherently see these individuals as leaders of people."Howard: The question is, for the corporate world, and I've asked this question numerous times when I do these types of stories, are you grooming me to replace you? Because if you're not grooming me to replace you, then all of this is performative. Do you look at me and are you willing to have me be the face of your institution? You know, that is not a hard question to answer, but it's a very hard question to acknowledge, because the answer is generally no. I have made this argument to people, and people don't like it because, you know, they think it's too political because they don't want to confront their own history, but you can just look it up. It's not hard. I've always told people that if you are anti-big government you are anti-black, and people say, "No, no. I'm just a libertarian." And I'd say, "No," which is also my way of being direct, because anti-big government is a clear Republican platform. Whether you're black or white, if you are a Republican who supports the shrinking of government, chances are you're a racist. And why would I say that? I say that because historically, if you look at hiring patterns since the end of World War II, the federal government built the middle class, the black middle class. The federal government, you know, in terms of hiring, in terms of civil service jobs, the federal government built the black middle class, and as you start to shrink those positions, you shrink the black middle class. Whether you're doing it by design or whether indirectly, the end result is the same, and what I'm getting at here, for your space, is that the private, corporate sector still does not routinely and prominently hire and promote black people. It still doesn't, and so if you're going to cut the number of government jobs, whether it's state, whether it's federal, post office, whatever you want to call it, you are actively crushing the black middle class. This is the reason why these diversity and inclusion initiatives are so important, because this corporate world is not making those hires, and because they're not making those hires and because they can't be compelled to make those hires, you are at the mercy of what you may what you want to call progress or what we know to be lack of progress. So at some point--like, for example, you know, I went--and I think there's an anecdote... yes, there's an anecdote in the book about this, that I was at a diversity and inclusion event in Boston, and all of these CEOs sat down, and it was amazing. The first panel had a group of really well-prepared women making their pitches about, you know, some of their initiatives they're working on, and they were all so prepared, and it was crazy because they were incredibly polite. So they were incredibly well-dressed. They knew this was a shot to be on a major stage talking to major players in their industry at the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston. And they didn't interrupt each other, and they all did their presentations, and it was--you know, I understood it. It made sense. And then the next panel were the CEOs, and it looked like a country club. They were all wearing their suits, but they weren't necessarily--I don't even know if they were ironed. I mean, they just showed up because they're the bosses. They were in charge. Some of them wore ties and some of them didn't. They did not look at this like they were showing to this audience of black and brown women, you know? They weren't. It was very chummy. And they sat down, and they yucked it up with each other, and they cracked jokes and interrupted each other, because they were the bosses. They were in charge. And one of the most remarkable things that came across this entire event was when one of them talked about diversity and inclusion and promotions and talked about how it was easier for them to promote white men, because if white men in their offices didn't get jobs they were gonna make the biggest noise. They were gonna complain the most. They were gonna be the most disruptive. And the black women and the white women in the business were less likely to complain, which made it easier to pass them over for jobs. And it was a stunning, absolutely stunning, admission at a diversity and inclusion seminar.Zach: At an actual--targeted for this particular space.Howard: Exactly. Here was the beauty of this, which was obviously heartbreaking and painful, but it was the beauty of it. It was said so matter of factly that they didn't even know what they were admitting. They were essentially admitting that "No, we're not--" You know, "We'd like to hire you, but we know--" Because they were taking the path of least resistance. If I promote this guy or this woman, then this guy's gonna complain and be disruptive, so I might as well give him the promotion so at least I can have harmony. I can have the appearance at least of order. It's essentially almost like the corporate indictment of Martin Luther King, Jr. [?] white moderate, "order over justice." As long as nobody's mad and nobody says anything, everything's cool. And it's like, "No, wait a minute. You're contributing to this by having no courage. And by the way, if you're the boss and you've got a disruptive employee, he's insubordinate. You've got the power to do something about that." And that's the reason why that chapter in the book is called The Mediocre White Boy, because these guys are protecting each other at the expense of your advancement.Zach: Man. You know, your book collects a series of pieces, all of them powerful. The bylines of many of them I read was this concept of, like, self-erasure, right? So there were multiple instances where athletes would say, you know, "I'm not black, I'm this," or "I'm not anything, I'm just me," and, you know, I see a similar pattern for well-to-do black professionals, like, executives. I've literally met folks who will say, "Well, I'm not just black. I'm also a tennis player." [laughs] Or "I'm just me," you know? "That's part of who I am, but I'm a complex person," or--Howard: One of the biggest problems that we have in business and when we talk about ourselves is the idea of what blackness is, and we do this to ourselves, and when we do it to ourselves, then that gives white people license to do it ten times worse to us. And when you watch, you know, film, and you watch Hollywood and you watch everything, they essentially assume there's one black experience, because we attack each other so often on authenticity. And, you know, one of the reasons why I did this book was because I felt like there was an opportunity to talk about certain elements of the black experience that never get discussed. I mean, one of the beauties of Ta-Nahesi Coates' writing is that he writes very specifically about a very specific black experience, his experience, you know, in Baltimore and as a professional, and he writes about being black in black communities. The same is true for a bunch of other writers, but one of the areas that we never really talk about is that post-1960s, post-1950s aspirational, you know, black families who made that decision--the same decision that white people made, whether it was white flight or black flight--that "I'm going to take my kids out of the black community and move them into the white spaces." And what happened to those black kids who grew up immediately and always as the only black kid in class? You're the only black kid in the first grade. You're the only black kid in the twelfth grade. You essentially live in a world of whiteness, and why are we asking you to live in this world of whiteness? For education. Your parents are doing this for you. They're doing this because--like, in my case, when we left Boston, we were trading the physical violence of a tough, tough neighborhood for the emotional violence of being the only black kid in a room full of white people. So eventually as that toll begins to mount on you, you enter these white corporate spaces, and you recognize very quickly the price of being black and the anti-blackness that you're surrounded by. And sometimes you hear, or a lot of times this becomes the price for you to advance - not to be black, not to talk about being black, not to be proud of being black. You hear black people say this all of the time. "Well, I don't want to be a black writer. I just want to be a writer who happens to be black." What on earth does that mean? "I'm not a black doctor. I'm a doctor that happens to be black." And what you're really saying is that "I can't carry this anymore. I don't want to carry this, because if I carry this with me I may not advance and I gotta answer questions I don't feel like answering." And you see it in sports especially where sort of this deal is they're going to trade your blackness for money, okay? "We're gonna pay you millions of dollars, but we don't want you talking about issues that are important to black people." So I began to think about this in two of the chapters. One is called "The Worst Thing in the World" and the other one is called "The Lost Tribe of Integration," which is that when I started thinking about the arc of my own life, that the arc is that your life will improve the faster and quicker you get away from black people. If you get away from the black community, your schools get better. If you get away from talking about black issues, then you're not a troublemaker at work anymore, you know? If you don't advocate for black people, then people will look at you and tell you that you've transcended race, as if looking in the mirror is something that you should not want. Zach: You know, what's really interesting about that is even in the diversity and inclusion, like, corporatized space--and I've noticed this as me as a black man, like, the more that I'm able to say things like, "It's not just about race and ethnicity, it's also about diversity of thought--" If even in the space that was supposedly built so that we can have equity for black and brown people and historically marginalized and oppressed groups--even in this space, if I, in my rhetoric, in my general language, if I eschew ethnicity, that is also [?]--Howard: If you advocate directly for black people, you are putting your entire career in danger. And I say this now, and people look at me, and they don't like to hear it, but I'll say it now, I'll say tomorrow, and I said it yesterday - diversity is anti-blackness, because what we're really talking about here when you look at the statistics and when you look at the reasons for the Rooney Rule--you're not looking at the Rooney Rule because Asians are underrepresented, but when you're having your diversity and inclusion initiatives, especially if you're talking about technology--if we're going to Silicon Valley, you're not looking at the Middle-Eastern or the Indian or the Asian and say, "Gee, they're not advancing." What you're looking at is a white space that has no black people, and so many of these D&I initiatives began with black people. It was about black people. It was for black people. But when you do something directly for black people, people get offended. They get mad. They don't want to hear it. They feel like, "Well, what are you giving them special treatment for?" Because you gave us the special treatment of not letting us play. You've been giving us special treatment since we got here. It's just not the special treatment that is a positive special treatment. It's negative, but it's still special. So what has happened in these spaces now is to minimize the idea that you're giving black people special treatment, now you just talk about non-white male treatment. But non-white male treatment does not necessarily address the inequities for black people specifically. So D&I suddenly becomes hiring white women, and so white women--who are often part of the patriarchy, who are always second on the food chain, who can marry into wealth faster than everybody, and if you look at your statistics, marrying into wealth is still the fastest way to become wealthy. The most reliable way to become wealthy isn't going to college, it's to marry into it. So now when you start to look and your demographics change, now all of a sudden--we had 89% white men in a given position, now it's 69% white men in a given position, but it's 29% white women. What does that actually do for black people? So you've got your diversity, but you haven't helped black people. You haven't helped the people on the bottom who were supposedly the target of this initiative. But you've got your diversity, you know? You've got seven white men, two white women, and one--you know, one Asian man, but what does that do for the person on the bottom? It didn't help them at all, yet your numbers are different and you can say, "We've improved diversity by 30%," but what happens to me? You haven't helped me at all. Zach: So we typically have sound effects, Howard, but you've been so fire that I'm not even trying to, like, dilute what you've been saying. So do you ever imagine a world where marginalized communities collectively go full dissidence in their places of work? And, like, if so, what in your mind would that look like?Howard: Well, the answer's no because you've got to eat. I mean, the answer's no because eventually, you know, when you start looking at the actual numbers, the numbers tell you that--they're so overwhelming, that there's only a few of us that are gonna be able to succeed, and so very few people are going to be willing to risk that. I mean, I look at myself and I look at the numbers and I say to myself, "There's nothing special about me," and then you look at the actual number of black people who have my job and you go, "Oh. On second thought, there is something special," because you're one of the few people who actually has a platform, who actually has a chance to say something.Zach: Howard, man. I'm serious. I'm telling you, man. I'm not joking. When you got up on there and you started talking like that, me and all of my friends were like, "Yo... this is gonna be the last time we see this dude up here." [laughs]Howard: Exactly, right? But see, I look at it this way. ESPN hired me to do this. They didn't hire me to act like Bill Simmons or to act like Rick Reilly or to act like Stephen A. They said, "You go out and do what you do best." Now, obviously when you're gonna do this, when you're going to say these different things, it goes back to what you were saying earlier about "Do you want diversity of color or diversity of thought?" Normally, what a lot of corporations want is they want diversity of color, but they don't want diversity of thought because diversity of thought challenges them way too much. So what they would really like is they would like a gigantic, pretty rainbow of different colors who are all represented who all think the same way so the company's not challenged. I understand that part. I don't always subscribe to that part, because as a journalist, you're asking me to represent people who don't have the opportunity to speak, and so I try to do that. That's part of the job, or at least it was part of the job and it should always be part of the job. So the issue is, to answer your question, what needs to happen and how do I envision that? What does that look like? Well, how it looks to me is I think it's more of a mental liberation than a physical one. I think to me, when I think about full dissidence as an idea--and I think I end the book with it--is it's the recognition that you can find your own living space and not let people lie to you or not feel like you have to buy in. You've got to be willing to see through what's happening right now. Look at what's happening to your situation, and then you need to discover your own strategies to find your own peace within it. But the problem that I see is the number of black people in the business who were so [?] and so happy that they get in that they buy into it and they think they're different and they're like, "Okay, everything's changed," and then they get punched in the face. And then they get punched in the face and they had their hands down, and what I'm trying to say is if you're gonna navigate this environment, navigate the environment, but make sure your hands are up and know that punch is coming, because that punch always comes. Ask your parents. Ask your grandparents. That punch always comes. So what you're really asking me in some ways, whether you're doing it directly or not or intentionally or not, is do I see white people changing so there's no need for this, and the answer is no, I don't see that. What I see--and that's one of the reasons why in the book I say it's not a survival guide, it's simply what I see--what I see is the necessity for black people to hold on to their blackness, to keep it and to not trade it and not sacrifice it under this idea that "If I do the right things and if I say the right things I'm gonna get accepted as an American," because it hasn't happened yet, you know? That's the big thing for me, that you look at the--you know, you go watch a movie like Gloria or go read the history of, you know, black participation in warfare, that if you fight for your country or if you win the medals or if you build the charter school or if you, you know, give the money to whatever foundation, that you are finally gonna get accepted, and it goes back to what you were saying. It's that whole idea of outperforming racism. I guess the best way to say it is--what is full dissidence? Full dissidence is the recognition that you cannot outperform racism. That's what it feels like to me.Zach: Man, thank you so much for being on the podcast. This has been incredible. Y'all, make sure y'all check out his--everything's in the show notes. The author, his name is Howard Bryant. The book is called Full Dissidence: Notes from an Uneven Playing Field. Make sure y'all check it out. This has been Zach with the Living Corporate podcast. Make sure you check us out on Instagram @LivingCorporate, Twitter @LivingCorp_Pod, and we're on Google, man. Look, we're all on Al Gore's Internet, man. Livingcorporate.co, .us, .net. Howard, listen, man, we understand how theses SEOs work. We've got all the domains, Howard, except for LivingCorporate.com. Australia has that domain somehow. I don't know what's going on. We're gonna try to get it, but look, [Howard and Zach laugh] y'all make sure y'all hit us up. I can't thank you enough, Howard. Until next time, we'll catch y'all, man. Peace.

Zach has the pleasure of chatting with FranklinCovey's Pamela Fuller in this episode themed around the topics of engagement and inclusion. She shares with us why she thinks that we're often talking about unconscious bias rather than just bias, and she also gives us a practical example of what it means to tie inclusion to performance. Listen to the full show to hear Pamela's definition of employee engagement and a whole lot more.Connect with Pamela on LinkedIn and Twitter!Find out more about FranklinCovey via their website or socials: LinkedIn, IG, Twitter, FacebookVisit our website!TRANSCRIPTZach: What's up, y'all? It's Zach with Living Corporate, and look, we're back. It's Season 3. It's 2020. You know, you're probably riding in your hover jet or, you know, petting your cloned pig. I don't know what's happening in the future, but, you know, it's 2020 is my point. It's a new year, and, you know what we do. We have authentic conversations that center underrepresented voices in the corporate space--and corporate space is just another word for saying "work," so a 9-to-5 job. So underrepresented voices at work, that's what we do. We amplify those through having authentic conversations with black and brown executives, hiring partners, entrepreneurs, creatives, activists, artists, musicians. Like, anybody, right? And we're having, like, these evergreen conversations. Like, we're taking these evergreen topics rather, but we're centering them on black and brown / underrepresented perspectives, and we have, like, really great guests. Like, Season 1 we had some really incredible guests, Season 2 we had some really awesome guests, and Season 3 is no different. We have with us today Pamela Fuller with FranklinCovey. For more than 15 years, Pamela has worked in both the public and private sector supporting clients and solving complex problems. She currently serves as FranklinCovey's Thought Leader, Inclusion and Bias as well as a Global Client Partner responsible for supporting some of the organization’s most strategic accounts. Her solutions-oriented and client-centric approach has resulted in unique solutions that exceed client expectations and achieve results. Pamela works with clients to match the right solution to organizational strategic priorities and is particularly adept at designing tailored, competency-based programs to solve her client's most pressing needs. Through this work, Pamela has designed programs that have made an impact on hundreds of thousands--yo, hundreds of thousands--of participants to include FranklinCovey’s newest offering, Unconscious Bias: Understanding Bias to Unleash Potential. Prior to her current role, Pamela served as an EEO & Diversity Analyst and Trainer where she conceived and implemented proactive diversity programs to include human capital planning, training on unconscious bias and microaggressions, and statistical workforce analysis. She also served the non-profit community for nearly a decade, executing marketing, communications, special events and fundraising strategies. She is a highly sought-after consultant--I mean, come on, after everything I read, clearly she is a highly sought-after consultant--speaker and strategist, having addressed leaders across the world on leadership topics to include unconscious bias, high potential leadership and building an inclusive and effective culture to include the United Nations System, U.S. federal government and the Fortune 500. My, goodness. I mean, come on, y'all. Like, if that doesn't get you off your seats, if that don't get you paying attention to something, I mean... [ow sfx] Goodness. Pamela, welcome to the show. How are you doing?Pamela: Thank you. Thank you so much for having me. I am good. I don't know if you ever get used to hearing your bio read. I think there's a humility that we're all raised up with that makes that feel so strange. So, um, anyway, I'm just thrilled to be here and engage in this conversation.Zach: Man. You know, let's just get right into it, right? Like, a critical part of any conversation is language and clear definitions. I think, like, you know, the D&I space has been existing for a while, but I feel like that we're seeing a shift in the past handful of years where, I don't know, just the intention around the work is just that, more intentional. And so before we even get into this whole conversation, like, can we get your definition of inclusion and bias?Pamela: Absolutely. I think inclusion--as I think about inclusion, I think we know we're being successful with inclusion when it is a metric of performance. If everyone in the organization feels included, valued, respected, then they are able to perform at their best, and I think that's really important, that connection to performance, because quite often people talk about diversity and inclusion around sort of a moral responsibility or it being the right thing to do, and while I firmly believe all of those things, I think that a conversation about the right thing to do is not as compelling in an organization as the impact on performance. So yes, it's the right thing to do for lots of reasons. Ultimately as a business or an organization, the reason it's most important is to ensure that we are positioning everyone to perform, to meet whatever our goals or results are for the organization, and people can't do that if they feel inhibited or encumbered or disrespected or ignored or tolerated, right? So inclusion is a sense that everyone feels they can contribute their best selves and that they desire to do so, because if I'm not included I don't even want to give you my best ideas, right? And I think bias, as we talk about bias, we define bias at FranklinCovey and in our new offering around--we define it as a preference, a preference that we might have about a person or a place or a thing, a circumstance, and the word preference I think is really important to the definition, because when we think of bias we often think of it being inherently negative. We think biases of prejudice or a stereotype, and if it's inherently negative we get a little bit defensive about it. So people bring up bias and a lot of people in organizations, particularly people who don't feel like they've been on the receiving end of bias, might get really defensive. You know, "I don't have bias," or "I don't have prejudice. I don't have stereotypes. I sort of treat everyone fairly," but if we define it as a preference we speak to what bias really is. It's a natural part of the human condition, of how the brain works, and we have preferences that on their face don't have value, but they impact our behavior, and that behavior has a result that can be negative or positive. So bias is preferences we have about kinds of things, whether your desk is messy or gender or race, you know? Bigger, heavier issues, or the sorts of qualifications people have or where they went to school, where they're from in the country, all kinds of things, and that impacts how we interact with other people, how we handle circumstances, how we make decisions, and those decisions, or that impact, again goes back to performance. So I think that these terms are really valuable when we can tie them to performance, because that's the result of inclusion and bias.Zach: No, and I'm right there with you, right? I think so many times--let me take a step back. So I think premises, discussing premises is really important. So I do believe, in my experience and also from what I've read as well as conversations that I've had with other leaders, [that] a lot of times when we talk about diversity and inclusion it's framed around the comfort of the majority, right? So, like, just now when you framed inclusion around performance, that in itself is a differentiator--this is not even an ad for FranklinCovey by the way, y'all. This is not an ad. I'm just trying to shout--but, I mean, with respect, [laughing] it's a differentiator because with the tie-in to performance there's also, like, an underlying theme of accountability, right? Like, if I'm tying something to performance, I'm tying to something tangible and measurable, that means that there is an outcome that we're looking to achieve. I think a lot of times when we talk about inclusion though specifically they are moreso tied to, like, feelings or, like you said, moral imperatives, and the reality is, like, the world operates today very exclusively. There are plenty of exclusive spaces, and there are plenty of systems that are built off of exclusivity. So I don't know if that angle of positioning as inclusion as, like, the right thing to do is going to win over the masses, because if the moral imperative was that strong and people really vibed with it, we wouldn't have all the work that we have to do. So it's interesting though, kind of on with the idea of inclusion, a popular definition of inclusion is being asked to dance at the party you were invited to, right? And people say it--I'm sure you hear it often, but people say it with such, like--I don't know, like it's just such a [swaggy?] thing to say, and I'm like, "Okay. I mean, it's cool," but can we talk a little bit about the role that power plays in inclusion? Like, do you think that you can have inclusion of underrepresented employees without granting them some authority within the organization that they operate?Pamela: Uh, no. [laughs] In short, right? But I think it sort of goes back to definition. So when we think about the moral imperative, there's a power dynamic in that as well, right? Because what we're saying if we say it's a moral imperative, we're sort of putting it in the same box as charity. Like, "This is a good will," right? "A charitable act that I will do for these underrepresented groups is to bring them into the conversation." So I think that's another reason I feel very strongly about reframing inclusion and bias around performance, because I think it's not a charity, right? There's an actual end result. There's whole populations we're leaving out of organizations, and that is detrimental to performance, because ultimately organizations cannot serve--you know, I do a lot of work in the federal space. The federal government cannot serve the American people if it's not reflective of the American people. That's a big, grandiose example, but the same is true of private sector. Your customers are reflective of a population or a demographic and you can't serve them if you don't reflect them. So I think that power is an important part of this, and another thing that we see as we work with organizations is that organizations are typically more diverse at the front line. It's difficult to get to diversity and inclusion in the senior ranks, and even as we look at the chief diversity officer or the office of diversity and inclusion or diversity, equity and inclusion, or even chief experience officer, right? I think corporations are going through a bit of a vanguard in terms of what that role is even called, but it's interesting to see where that person sits in an organization and where they report, and I think where they sit and where they report is a reflection of how strongly the organization feels about the value of diversity and inclusion efforts and their linked performance.Zach: Well, so where they sit, who they report to, and then also who they are, right? Like, who they actually choose to be in those positions.Pamela: Yeah, because I think that there is a bit of a--I don't know. There's a lot of talk about that across D&I professionals in terms of the identity of the person in that role and does it need to be someone from a marginalized group, and I also think there's a sentiment sometimes, particularly in highly technical organizations, that HR issues generally are people who are, like, not technical enough, and so there's not always a lot of respect in an organization given to the capability of that person who sits in the role, which again goes to your point about power, that if it's not a highly respected role, if it's not seen as highly valued, then the person is limited in the impact that they can make across the organization.Zach: And, you know, it's interesting because I remember a couple jobs ago I was working, and we had the black affinity group, right? And, you know, there were multiple different affinity groups, and each affinity group had a leader, and for all of the other groups, right, military, women, East Asian, LGBTQ, all the leaders were, like, senior managers or directors, right? So low- to mid-level senior leaders, but then for the African-American affinity group it was, like, an experienced hire. Like, someone who has been, you know, working for, like, four or five years. So off top you're like, "Okay, I don't--y'all don't care about this the same way that y'all care about these other spaces," you know what I mean?Pamela: Yeah, and it sort of violates best practice, right? So best practice around employee resource groups or affinity groups or business resource groups--again, sort of an evolution that organizations are going through, and each of those titles has a different contribution to make to the organization--but best practice across any of those structures is that there be executive sponsorship of the group and that the person who is the executive sponsor isn't necessarily part of the group, because there's research that shows that, when we look at diversity and inclusion efforts, if women and people of color are elevating those efforts and pushing them forward, if people in a marginalized group are pushing them forward, it can actually hurt their career over the long-term, because it seems self-serving, right? It seems like, you know, "I'm a black woman, I'm a Latino woman, and, like, we need more diversity in the senior ranks," right? [laughs] It seems like I'm saying, "Hire me," where as when a white man does that same sort of advocacy for issues of diversity and inclusion it seems benevolent, right? Because they don't actually--at least on its face, they don't have anything to gain from that advocacy. So one of the best practices for impacting any sort of whatever the structure is, affinity group, employee resource group or business resource group, is to have an executive sponsor who's not a member of the group so you sort of counteract this research, right? You have an advocate who's not part of the group and who, you know, for lots of reasons is sort of more trusted at the executive level because it doesn't seem self-serving. Zach: And to that point, I think when you talk about inclusiveness--and we've talked about, on Living Corporate, sponsorship and mentorship in the past. Like, to me, like, that's the biggest opportunity strategically, and then just organizationally, when you talk about, like, the next step when it comes to employee resource groups. Right now it's like these ERGs are spaces where others are able to kind of cluster together and either be kind of, like, other with themselves or just kind of be out of the way, but it puts responsibility on underrepresented employees. It fully charges black and brown, LGBTQ, disabled, it fully charges non-white men, non-straight, white men, to be in charge of their own inclusion efforts, right? Like, we're not really connecting the dots between the folks who actually have authority, access, and power with these underrepresented folks. I often see these groups kind of just operate autonomously, almost like they're an island in of themselves as opposed to them being connected to this larger organizational strategy. Is that something that you've seen often, or do you--like, are you seeing a shift in how these ERGs engage and work within the larger leadership structure?Pamela: I see that as well, and I think--you know, I don't see necessarily, like, a wave of engagement in the larger leadership structure. I think some organizations are just better at it than others for lots of--you know, it's either a longer-standing program or sort of the people at play or there are executives who have made it their business to be a part of these groups. I think one of the challenges with employee resource groups is the burden, as you've highlighted, sits with the population, and even the effort that they put towards it, right? Like, we are all in the workplace. We have--you know, everyone I speak to across public and private sector, you know, small, medium, large companies, multi-national companies, everyone is doing two jobs. Everyone is over-worked, and there's just not enough hours in the day. So then you look at demographics for underrepresented groups in corporate structures, and you're thinking, "Wow," and we've, got, like a handful of our high-performers putting additional effort and energy towards making these employee resource groups meaningful, which feels a bit counter-intuitive, right, when you're trying to sort of close the gap and accelerate in the leadership ranks. So I think employee resource groups need to be a part of a larger strategy, because they do serve a purpose. I mean, when I look--so in our program, and to your point not a plug, but just an example that I think--an illustration that I think might be helpful when you think about this is we do an exercise around a network audit and just sort of looking at your network and doing an audit of your personal and professional network in terms of who you choose to go to, like, when you have a problem or when you have a new project or when you're seeking coaching or mentorship about a specific issue, and when I do that activity for myself, I notice that my personal network is very reflective of me. I mean, it's, like, women of color who are college-educated, often have a higher degree, have an MBA, and are sort of in fast-paced jobs, sort of big jobs, and on paper we look very similar, and that serves a purpose. That's valuable for me for my own sense of belonging and sort of ensuring that I'm navigating things the right way and sharing my personal experience and the challenges I have that are specifically related to my role as a working mother of two brown boys in America, right? My professional network is much more diverse. There are many more men in my professional network. There are men in higher-level positions. There are also women. There's a lot more geographic diversity, because FranklinCovey is a global company and because I've worked and lived in other states outside of Washington, D.C., where I currently live--or Virginia, I should say, just outside of D.C., and so I think that--and when I look at that I ask the question, "Where do I have opportunity? Where do I have opportunity to expand my network, both for my own sense of sort of professional growth and development and belonging and inclusion as well as, you know, for the benefit of my network?" And so I think ERGs serve a purpose. Like, it's valuable for me to have a network that is reflective of me, because sometimes, you know, you don't have to explain things. You can say, like, "This happened," and people in your network who reflect you say, "Oh, I know. When that happens, this is what I've done," you know? Where as when people are different then there's a little bit more effort that you have to put in. You have to explain your perspective or explain why that might be problematic or ask the question differently. So I think they serve a purpose. It's valuable to have that network, and we see that organizations who don't have those sorts of networks really struggle to retain diverse talent and to promote diverse talent, but it can't be the only thing, right? Organizations have to have a multi-pronged strategy that doesn't put the burden only on those people to build a network for themselves. So there needs to also be some formal mentoring and coaching opportunities in place. There needs to be engagement of the majority in minority efforts. There needs to be formal leadership development opportunities and, you know, rotational assignments for people, and surveys that indicate what people's experience is, and then response to that survey data, right? Most organizations do do sort of employee engagement surveys. They don't necessarily respond to what they hear and try to bridge those gaps. So I think when ERGs are the organization's only strategy, that's a problem, but as part of a larger strategy I've seen them be really effective, 'cause there's a purpose that that serves, and it's valuable.Zach: No, you're absolutely right. I think the challenge is that for so many organizations ERGs is, like, the beginning and end of their DE&I strategy, right? Like, it's "Okay, we set these things up for y'all to be different over there. So have your happy hours, let us know what the budget it--you've got about $600 for the year--and enjoy yourself," right? [both laugh]Pamela: You can buy one bottle of wine.Zach: Get your one bottle of wine and celebrate your one promotee and enjoy, right? [laughs] But jokes aside--and that really wasn't a joke, but pessimistic commentary aside--[laughs]Pamela: [laughs] Skepticism aside.Zach: Yes, yes, yes. It's interesting because I think what that doesn't also account for is, like, the emotional labor that goes into, like, one even just being a part of an ERG, but then two working and trying to build one up, right? So like you said, we all have these full-time jobs. I'm a consultant, and so it's like, "Okay, I'm already working on the billable engagement, then I have some additional work that I'm doing to, like, sell something else," and then maybe I'm even working on a whitepaper or some research or something else, and then on top of that you want me to lead a whole ERG? Or you want me to participate in one? Like, even participating, right, I think it's really easy--and I had a conversation with some colleagues some months ago, and they were talking about "Well, we're going to judge ERG engagement by how many people show up to events," and I was trying to explain--I was like, "Well, wait a minute. That can't be your only measure for judging engagement or participation, because some people may just--honestly if you just sent out an email once a month with, like, some type of professional tip or did some type of blogging series, or--like, there are people who maybe just like to observe. They might not necessarily want to show up physically and hang around and hang out after a whole week-long of work," because even showing up in spaces where we're the majority can sometimes be performative, 'cause we don't know everybody. Like, "I don't know you." Like, yes, you and I both might be black, but we're not a monolith. Like, I still need to build up trust, and that in itself can be an emotional exercise. So how do we--you know, how do we account for the labor that's involved in just being present in these spaces, right? I'm already exhausted from being present everywhere else, so now I'm going to be present here? This is going to be positive, but we need to make sure that we're accounting for that effort, because it is an effort. It's not just automatic. I think it's really easy, outside looking in, just to think that everybody wants to just pop up to everything or do a happy hour or do insert-whatever-activity it is when it's like, "Man, you know, honestly I would just benefit from somebody just sending me a note," or "I would just benefit from a phone call or just listening on a conference call or," like, again, reading a newsletter. I don't necessarily know if I need to, like, be physically present somewhere on top of all of the things that I'm doing for me, right? Again, I'm not dismissing the reality that these events are great, they can be, but everybody's different and, you know, I've yet to talk to one black person, black or brown person at work, who hasn't, like, significantly dealt with some B.S. at their job that they're actively trying to manage through and smile through, so, like, when you think about that kind of stuff, and then now I gotta kind of do this other thing, it can just kind of be a bit much, you know what I mean?Pamela: Yeah, I agree. And I think personality-wise--so it's hard because, you know, understanding the value that ERGs play and how they are helpful for some people and then, like, being personally an introvert, it's a little bit hard for me. [both laugh] To go back to something I said earlier, they just need to be part of a more holistic strategy, and even I guess how they run. Like, so many times companies are using the term employee resource group and it really is an affinity group. It's a club. And there's sort of a--there's a cliqueyness that can come from clubs that is not helpful. So I think--I believe really strongly in meaningful connection. I think that sometimes the D&I community can sort of become a little bit insular in terms of how it thinks about--you know, you sort of get a group of D&I professionals together and they're like, "This is the answer," right? Because we've seen, you know, it's a decades-old profession, and we haven't seen monumental, humongous shifts in representation, right? So there's a list of best practices, and I think the D&I community--you know, myself included as part of it--it's like we latch onto these things and say, "Well, let's do this," but there is--like, each organizational structure is really different, and it's important to take into account what is gonna work in the organization to solve those specific challenges. I think, you know, we look at, like, Lean Six Sigma, and it's a process that you can apply to processes, you know, process improvement. It's a mechanism you can apply to process improvement to find efficiencies across any number of processes. I don't think diversity and inclusion is the same in terms of, like, having sort of one process that can be applied to everything. I think understanding the organizational culture and context is really important, and then understanding what the people at the organization want is really important. So I think ERGs have their purpose, but I also think I guess in the measure of that it's important to do some evaluation around, like, is this an affinity group, and do the people who are a part of it want it to be an affinity group, or do they want it to be more of an employee resource group that is focused more on mentoring, coaching, and sponsorship? Or more sort of meaningful connection versus safe space, right? I think affinity groups are like safe space. Come to this thing, this happy hour, or here's this sort of best practices or, like, who to go to for what. Employee resource groups are more building your network and influence across an organization, sponsorship, coaching, mentoring, sort of an intense focus on promotion and leadership development, and then business resource groups are very tied to strategy, right? How are we--like, is this, the black business resource group, the BRG, going to, you know, build us a nwe customer channel or a new revenue stream, right, based on their connection to the company? So I think organizations are not always clear on, like, what it is they're actually setting up and is that in alignment with the participants and what they're looking for. I just think it takes some extra work, right? It's easy to say, "Let's set up these things." It's harder to say, "Let's do some analysis around what kind of thing we need to set up and what it needs to do."Zach: You know what? I don't think that I've had any conversations with anyone really--let me take that back, I've had one conversation with someone who has--like, in private, and we were talking off the mic about the difference between an ERG and a BRG, but I don't know if I've ever had someone really articulate the difference between these different groups. I think that a lot of times what I'm seeing is that we're just using these terms interchangeably, right? Like, without any type of thoughtful definition as to what they mean, 'cause I can say that, like, there's one huge tech organization that uses affinity group, and they're doing way more than another tech organization that I know that is using the term BRGs, right? But I just gotta give you a Flex bomb, 'cause I've never heard someone, like, just very simply explain why those terms mean different things and why they matter. So hold on one second. Come on, Sound Man. Drop it for me right here. [Flex bomb sfx] You know what I'm saying? That's a DJ Flex bomb. Do you know Funkmaster Flex?Pamela: Yeah. I like it. I'll take it.Zach: I appreciate it. No problem.Pamela: It's like I've won the podcast. [both laughing]Zach: This has actually been a very, like, sound effect-light podcast, but, you know what, we're gonna pick it up here. So let's do this. Let's talk about diversity within the context of inclusion. In your opinion, can an organization be inclusive and not be diverse? Like, is a white boys' club inclusive?Pamela: I mean, I think this is the age-old diversity of thought discussion. So organizations will say, you know, "We don't look very diverse. Like, on our face we all look the same, but we have so much diversity of thought. We all look at things really differently," and I think--I mean, diversity of thought exists across everyone. Like, there's a reality to we're all individuals who are bringing our own contribution to the table, but I did--so I used to work at the U.S. Department of Defense, and I was facilitating, years ago, this senior executive diversity seminar. So it was a group of senior executives from various agencies because DOD is a big agency with a lot of subordinate agencies within it. So it wasn't people who were working together every day. They were, like, in different places across DOD, and we're facilitating this conversation around diversity and inclusion. It's a couple-day seminar, multi-day seminar. And one of the participants--I will never forget this--stood up. It was a woman. And she said, "For whatever diversity that exists across this group of people," like, whatever identity, diversity exists--and it was pretty diverse gender-wise with, like, one or two black and brown people, but otherwise didn't... you know, they were all about the same age, and everyone seemed like they were able-bodied, at least from my--you know, from what I could see, but she said, "For whatever identity and diversity exists in this group, we're all actually exactly the same person." She said, "If you lined up our resumes, there's sort of a path to becoming a senior executive at the Department of Defense. So we've all, for the most part, had prior military service, and we were all willing to move all over the world to serve in our next post," which is sort of, you know, a thing that's important at the DOD, and she sort of rifled through some things and said, you know, "We've all gone to this sort of handful of institutions, right? Naval Academy, West Point. We all probably maybe started--" A big part of DOD is the recruitment happens in the southeastern U.S., right? So we're all, like, from--she just sort of railed through these things about all of the ways that they were the same, and I think that it was a really just interesting thought in the room around, like, how an organization, as a huge organization, how does the DOD, like, build and grow leaders? They often do so, like many organizations, you sort of build and grow leaders one way, and it's the way that's worked before, so you replicate that, right? You know, you hired an engineer for this role and the engineer did really well, and then you look at the job responsibilities and you decide, "Well, they must have an engineering degree to do this well," even though the job responsibilities don't necessarily require the engineering degree. But then, you know, for the rest of eternity it requires the engineering degree, right? So I think that organizations lean in to what they can attest to, right? What they can say they have. I think inclusivity is about behavior, and so I do think the organization can be inclusive, can behave in a way where everyone feels respected, valued and included, they feel like they can [tie?] to performance, but I would push further to say, "But do those behaviors really exist if it's not a diverse workforce?" Because it means that there's some bar of entry, right?Zach: Right, stated or otherwise.Pamela: Yeah, stated or otherwise. Like, and I think organizations will say, "Well, we're based in Iowa, and it's not that diverse," or, like, "We're a family company, and so we're sort of small and, you know, we're just word-of-mouth," and my question is always, you know, "What is the opportunity?" Right? I did some work in rural Minnesota [laughing] a few months ago, and I was like--I thought it was in, like, the Twin Cities, in Minneapolis, and then, like, two days before they were like, "Okay, when you land we need to pick you up, and it's a 5-hour drive north." I was like, "Oh, my God. We're going to Canada." [both laugh] Like, I was not prepared for that, but it was really fascinating because I had a perception of what it's like to live in rural Minnesota and that it was probably predominantly white people, but there's several large Indian tribes. There's a growing, like, Somali population in the state of Minnesota generally. There's, like, this sort of large [?] Chinese enclave and I think a Vietnamese population, right? So during the course of this session that I was delivering and this conversation we were having, I could easily imagine an organization based in rural Minnesota saying, "Well, we're not diverse because, like, the people aren't here," but in the course of this conversation with their community foundations it's like, "Well, it sounds like there's a lot of different people here," right? So I think the thing that I would push on for an organization saying, "We're really inclusive and we have diversity of thought, you know," or "We're just not--a diverse population isn't interested in working here," or, like, "We've tried to recruit and it doesn't work," or, you know, "Most of our hires are through referral or word-of-mouth," I would just push on that and say, "Is that the best way to source candidates? Is that the best way to bring innovation into your organization? Is that the best way to look at things differently?" Like, there's an opportunity in that that I think organizations don't necessarily claim. They sort of talk it away. Like, no. It's your responsibility as an organization to explore that opportunity in my opinion, particularly again as we tie to performance, because if you're not doing it, then you're not doing everything you can to enhance the performance in the organization.Zach: So, you know, and you've talked about performance quite a bit, like, in terms of you've said the term and you've talked about tying it back. Can you give us, like, a practical example of what it means to tie inclusion to performance?Pamela: The easiest thing for people to relate to is an individual example, is to say, "If I feel encumbered in any way, if I feel--" So I worked for... I'll give you an example personally. So I worked for a woman for a long time who, on its face, identity-wise, we were very similar, and she sort of self-identified herself as my mentor, and I worked with her and I would complete projects for her in briefings. In the federal space briefings are a big deal, so you sort of work on them. They're very detailed, and you know in consulting as well, right? Like, you prep a deck, right, for a presentation, and the details are important, and it gets reviewed by all of the important people, and then someone delivers it. And so at the time I was much more junior and I wouldn't be the person who delivered it, but we'd be in these meetings and, because I'm the one who prepared it, right--the person who prepared it knows all the details. They know why the period is in that specific place--and so there'd be questions, and she clearly wouldn't know the answers to those questions. She'd sort of look at me, and I would answer the question, and then sometimes I would, like, throw in my two cents about it because that is my way. [laughs] And whenever I had--like, whenever I sort of got too big in my boots or, like, had too much of a thought about it, she would stop me in front of everyone and say, "Pamela, as your mentor, I think that's a private conversation we need to have. I need to give you some guidance on that. Let's not--" You know, that kind of thing, and so I think that--Zach: Hold on, hold on, hold on. Before you just fly past that. [both laugh] Had someone said that to me, I'd look at them like [record scratch sfx]. Like, what? You can't just--so what did you say? What did you do?Pamela: I mean, I was--so, you know, power was at play, right? Like, I was a--at that time, in that role, I was a contractor. I wasn't even, like a full-time employee. I was an on-site contractor for this work, and so in front of all these senior leaders and, you know, at the behest of my boss, I didn't really feel like I had an option. I mean, I needed my job. [laughs] So I would sort of shut up and just, you know, "Sorry about that. Look forward to talking to you about it privately," right? And just try to move through and control my facial expressions, but when we think about performance, right, that's very limiting, and so, like, that only had to happen a handful--you know, I'm a quick learner. Like, that only had to happen a handful of times before I understood that I didn't really need to be giving anyone my best ideas, and I frankly didn't need to be putting my best ideas into these briefings. Like, if she was gonna do them and she didn't need my thoughts, right? I think it's the same as, you know, you often hear in diversity, in terms of inclusion and best practices, about amplification, which came out of the Obama White House. The senior policy women realized that they were being skipped over. I mean, that is a direct connection to performance. You've got this idea, or you're all trying to solve a problem, you have a suggestion, and it's ignored. I mean, how many times do you keep doing that before you just decide, like, "You know what? I'm not gonna do it." Like, "It's not worth it," right?Zach: Listen, it takes--and it's funny because, like, the older I've gotten, the shorter my fuse is with that stuff, right? Like, if I take the time and I really put together things--'cause, you know, at a certain point, you know, you live life long enough [and] you don't really need validation on every single thing, so you know if you put a good idea forward and people just glaze over it or they ignore you or they co-opt it in some way, it's like, "Ah, okay. All right, I'll keep those for myself from now on." [laughs] Pamela: So I think these sorts of slights are limiting to performance, and I think that if we were to look at, like, team dynamics, right, the boss who minimizes certain people while elevating other people, that inhibits performance, and you rely on--I mean, management is the highest calling. Like, in a manager's role, you have infinite impact because you're impacting the performance of your entire team, and you're very much a connector, right? When you think of sort of middle management, you're a connector between the front line and then the operational or strategic perspective in the organization, and so you look at a manager who's doing that over the course of their, you know, 20-year career as a manager managing people and what sort of impact does that have on the performance of that team over the long term and how that team interacts with other teams and how we solve problems? So I think--and, you know, you look at retail, and of course, like, the common example, right, is the Starbucks incident a couple of years ago or Sephora last year. I mean, if that's not inhibiting performance, I don't know what it is. The performance in retail is whether you have consumers who are buying, and so if you've got whole groups of the population who you've shown through this mishap and through this behavior that they're not welcome in your space or you're not interested in them consuming, I mean, that has a serious impact on performance. Zach: You know what? And it's interesting because as you say that I think about, like, another really practical--like, a performance indicator, it's just around, like, the retention of your team, right? So, like, in tech there's this--at least from a marketing perspective--there's an ongoing push for these tech spaces to be more inclusive, to be more diverse, to be more welcoming of underrepresented employees, not just at the--at the non-manager levels, but at the manager and senior manager and executive levels as well, and yet, like, we're seeing that, like, these tech companies are just burning--first of all, tech is, like, a high-burn--like, consulting, [?], like, those different groups are high-burn places for everybody, and they're particularly high-burn for underrepresented folks, right? Black and brown women, LGTBQ, of course trans individuals. It's high, high, high, high-burn, high-turnover for these spaces, and it's interesting because I don't know--I'm a manager. Like, I'm the manager at a fairly large tech consulting firm, and retention of my team or, you know, how I'm able to help retain or drive retention of underrepresented folks is not measured. Now, I'm rewarded for recruiting people in. If I can refer somebody and bring 'em in, I have very hefty rewards for that, but what isn't measured, for me anyway, explicitly is how we make sure those people say.Pamela: I think, like, also the other reality of sort of consulting environments and high-burn, high-churn organizations is that we often dismiss people who leave as, like, it's a failing on their part, so we feel like people left 'cause they can't hack it, like, they can't cut it, it's too intense. I think more and more organizations are getting better at this, but I think lots of organizational cultures are designed to say, like, "That's not our responsibility." Like, "I got you here. It's not necessarily my responsibility to keep you." They don't say that. Like, on their face--you know, publicly they talk about the value of retention and strategies to retain people and, you know, exit interviews, but culturally the organization--someone will leave and then everyone else will hear, like, "Oh, they weren't really cut out for this anyway," or, like, "It's okay that they're not here anymore." So I think some of that cultural reality makes it tough too. Zach: There's a dollar value though with turnover. It costs money for people to leave, right? So unless, like, someone is, like, a legal risk to the company, 7, 8 times out of 10 it's cheaper to keep 'em, you know what I mean? And so it's just odd--it's odd to me that we're not... and I don't know. You know, I'm not a lawyer. Maybe we'll bring on somebody later in the season around, like, why is it that the recruitment efforts are so, like, so emphasized and marketed but the retention efforts aren't, because--I mean, I know enough about human resources to know that hiring somebody just to have them leave, like, a year, year and a half later is just, like, a crazy cost, right? And so even if, to your point around the culture, like, if we're not talking about from a moral perspective or even an ethical perspective, even if you just look at it from, like, a dollars perspective, there should be some type of focus on that, and I really want to take that and then get into this next piece. So I think that leads me well into my next question about inclusivity and employee engagement. I think it's fair though, before we get into that, for us to define what employee engagement actually means. So as a subject matter expert and just from your perspective, Pam, how do you define employee engagement?Pamela: So I think a lot of organizations talk about fit, and I think in the realm of diversity and inclusion, and particularly bias, conversations, fit is a bit of a four-letter word, and I think organizations put the burden of fit on the person who works in the organization. So, you know, they have to fit in our team. And I would argue that the burden is actually on the organization to create an environment where people fit, right? Like, where they can lean into their strengths and make a contribution, which I think ultimately what everyone wants to do. I mean, we all go to work for a paycheck, but you have a choice about where you get that paycheck from and how you spend your time. So I think the burden is on the organization to create environments where people can fit regardless of their identity, where their identity is not a hindrance to them fitting, quote-unquote, in the organization, and if such an environment is created, I think that helps employee engagement. I think that is a determining factor to employee engagement. If I feel like I belong in the organization, like I fit, like they've made space for me to be exactly who I am and make a contribution that I find meaningful that also contributes to the bottom line of the organization, then I am engaged, and that includes, you know, everything from organizational policies that tell me that I belong there to how my manager treats me or how my colleagues engage with me. Zach: And, you know, it's interesting because I know that, like, this idea around employee engagement, a lot of times--I did some work with... this was, like, before I was a consultant, but I was a part of this energy company, and Gallup was doing this whole, like, employee engagement survey for them.Pamela: Yeah. "Do you have a best friend at work?" [both laugh] That's their, like, infamous question.Zach: Yo, that's, like--boy. And no shade to Gallup 'cause I want y'all to come on here, but when they asked that at the time--this was some years ago--boy, you would have thought they figured out THE question to ask. I was like, "It's one question. It's one question, guys. Like, it's okay. Yep. We get it. It's not a huge indicator of a lot, but okay, great." But in that work with Gallup I remember that, like, one of the key talking points they had was like, "Look, employee disengagement isn't just, like, when the person is crossing their arms at their desk or always taking vacation or always sick or actively searching for another job on their computer," right? It's earlier than that, right? It's not that extreme. So I'm curious, like, what has your experience and research shown you how employee disengagement manifests and then how it's related to inclusive workspaces?Pamela: I think--like, as a manager, when you look sort of out across your team, there are people who are excited to be there. So I think it's less about--I think, again, sometimes we put the burden of employee engagement on the employee. Like, they're on Facebook at work or they're, like, you know, keeping Amazon in business during working hours, or they're showing up late or whatever, and we turn it into a discussion around, like, employee behavior and etiquette, but I think there's, like, a great--I mean, I think many people have great professional integrity, and they'll be disengaged and wouldn't be so belligerent in their behavior, right? [both laugh] They would, you know, search for their new job after hours on their home computer. And I think it's when they come in--and they would even continue trying to, like, do a good job and make a contribution, but, you know, they're doing what's asked and not necessarily coming to you with additional ideas, and they're not collaborating, right? You assign them something and you--I mean, engaged employees are actively engaged with their team, not only when they're directed to do so. So I think the sort of solitary nature of an employee is an early indicator that they're not engaged, right? Because when I'm engaged and I have something exciting--and I work remotely, so you have to be even more sort of deliberate about how you connect with people, but, you know, when I'm engaged and I'm excited about what I'm working on, I mean, I will call my colleagues just to say, like, "I want to hear what you think about this," or, like, "I just got this exciting--you know, a client just asked me for this thing. I'm sort of excited about it and would like to hear your ideas," or "Can I run this by you," right? I think how they're engaging, not just from an, I don't know, administrative standpoint in terms of, like, do they show up on time? [both laugh] It's more about, you know, are they working in isolation? Or are you seeing them actively engage with other people in the office? Do they have things at their desk that are of a personal nature? You know, I think people who don't feel like it's a right fit are much more cautious about that, right? They don't have pictures of their kids up or their partner, their puppy, right? You know, what do they do at lunch? And what does that behavior look like? So I think it comes across in how they're relating to other people in the organization.Zach: Right? And so when I think about what it means for leaders then to not undermine inclusivity or engagement at work, right? Like, I mean, I believe it calls for a much higher level of emotional intelligence and general empathy than we're giving folks credit for, and I question if organizations are doing everything they need to be doing to develop those muscles for leaders to even be sensitive and aware of those pieces that you just outlined, right? Because everyone has their own motivations, they have their own insecurities, they have their own pressures, and so it's--I empathize with the idea that okay, you have these leaders coming in, and they have these different metrics and things they have to hit, and also they need to be highly astute and aware of where their employee is, if they're paying attention, if they as leaders are creating an environment or opportunities for them to collaborate. If they're modeling collaboration, right? Like, in your work with FranklinCovey, have you had situations where you've had to have those types of conversations with leaders on how they can create more engaging environments?Pamela: I talk about that every day. I mean, I think that's a big thrust of our approach around unconscious bias and really all of our content. So I think emotional intelligence had a moment, right? It had a time, and it was a word that people were using, but it's sort of like self-awareness. Like, people say it's really important that you're, you know, self-aware as a lead, and everyone says, "I'm very self-aware," and then you talk to them for 5 minutes and you're like, "I don't know that you know what self-aware means," right?Zach: "I don't think you are." [both laugh]Pamela: "I don't think you're using that term correctly." So I think emotional intelligence is sort of similar. Like, you know, people know the four dimensions of emotional intelligence. You know, it's sort of like their DiSC profile. Like, they'll say, "I'm an EITJ," or whatever, and it just becomes this, like, default of, like, "I am" or "I am not." I believe emotional intelligence is a skill that you can build, and I think empathy is important, but I also think curiosity is important. You know, our CEO Bob Whitman did an interview recently, and he said curiosity is the #1 leadership competency or quality that he looks for in a person, and I just feel so strongly about that, because I think you can't be empathetic around information that you don't have. Like, I can't just--the goal is not to just be an empath who feels everyone's feelings. The goal is to learn something about someone that helps you relate to them. So as we were prepping, you know, for the interview, I talked about my kids, and you mentioned that you are welcoming a child soon. This is a point of connection. We can have some empathy about that, right? I can immediately think about what it was like when my kids first showed up and how lovely that was and the sort of high emotion of that experience, or, you know, you could hear me talk about my three-year-old and think, "Oh, wow. In three years I'll have a three-year-old." [both laugh] So I think that the curiosity piece is really important, and I think as managers--what I talk to managers quite often about is making the time for that. I think managers feel, particularly first-line leaders, you know, they were in a role as an individual contributor. They get promoted to that first-line leadership level, and they often still continue to do their individual contributor role and try to manage people.Zach: Right, on top of that.Pamela: On top of that, and there's just not enough time to do it. So of course you have to delegate and you have to trust your people, and there are strategies for how you can build trust in your people, build the capability of your people, but that has to be your new focus, and part of that is making some real time to cultivate connection among your team. And so, like, we'll talk with managers. We talk quite often at FranklinCovey about the value and importance of having one-on-ones and having a structure for those one-on-ones so that they're meaningful. It's not just a drive-by at your desk, right? It's not a weekly staff meeting, but actually having a one-on-one with people. And I'll talk to managers and they say, "Well, we have our annual performance review," and it's like... that's ridiculous. You can't have this conversation once, and around a performance document no less, right? So the one time that we engage in a one-on-one meeting, it's gonna be a high-stakes conversation, right?Zach: Where your livelihood is directly on the line.Pamela: Exactly. So I talk to leaders all the time about making the time and also being--you know, there are lots of introverts and lots of people to whom personal engagement doesn't feel natural, particularly at work, 'cause I think we're still fighting a little bit of the battle of, like, "I have a work persona and I have a personal persona," and I just--you know, one of the models we use at FranklinCovey to think about that is the whole person paradigm and just that you don't leave parts of yourself at home, right? You're a whole person all the time, and I really ascribe to that. I believe in that level of authenticity, and I think that we need to work deliberately to build that level of authenticity across teams. Managers need to ensure that they do know what someone's career goals are. Like, where do they see themselves in the future, and what are they interested in, and what are they excited about working on, and who do they really like to work with, and who are they challenged by, and, as a manager, can I find opportunities for them to connect with somebody they're challenged by so that we can improve our total dynamic, right? I worked for--in college, you know, I worked in college, and the best manager I've ever had I worked for in college, and she sort of sat me down and was like, you know, "I know that you work here and we have these goals around what we're doing." I worked in the student activity center, and we did programming around diversity and inclusion actually, and she said, "But you're a college student sort of at the beginning of your career and life, and it's important to not be myopic in terms of how you look at your goals." And so she gave me a little handout, and it had all of these different categories. It was like, finances and health and wellness and relationships and my family, and she said, "Every three months, every quarter, we're gonna sit down and just look at this and look at what your goals are. I'm gonna share with you my goals," right? So there was some vulnerability in it. It wasn't just like, "I will divulge my whole life story and you'll coach me through it." She was also sharing her goals, and particularly at a time--like, in college, my goal was, like, "I do not want to get my cell phone cut off again. I need to find a way to pay this bill," right? [laughs] And hers was "We're gonna buy a house." I was like, "Wow, a house," right? Like, the process of getting through a mortgage. Like, there's just--it's a small example of how a manager built connection with me through curiosity and empathy. She was vulnerable about what her goals were. She took the time to have this quarterly conversation with me. She created a space where I could talk about my whole self and everything I was dealing with at that moment in my life, and I think managers can do that on different scales based on the organizational culture and what is and is not appropriate to discuss and all that, but managers can do something like that with every member of their team, and they should, right? We shouldn't be having one annual performance conversation with your team. You shouldn't also--there are lots of employees who say they only speak to their manager to get assignments, right? So their manager just does drive-bys at their desk or calls them into their office to say, "Here, work on this," and never have, like, a more meaningful--Zach: Really transactional.Pamela: Really transactional, exactly, and for managers--managers will also lean into that. They'll say, "Well, no. It's just that I'm really efficient and I don't like to spend time and chit-chat," and that kind of thing, and it's more than that. It's not chit-chat. It's not--there's substance to having a meaningful conversation with somebody.Zach: That's just so true. So you've talked about bias and, like, you've used the term bias. You've even said unconscious bias. It seems as if the default any time we talk about bias within the diversity and inclusion space is that it's unconscious. Do you think that's a fair observation, and if so, why do you think that, when we talk about bias, we're often talking about unconscious bias and not just bias?Pamela: I think that's fair. I think--you know, really critical to any conversation I have about bias is about bringing the unconscious to consciousness, but also acknowledging that conscious bias exists. So I think unconscious bias can sometimes be used negatively, just like diversity of thought, but diversity of thought is really valuable, but it shouldn't be the reason you don't have diversity in other dimensions. And unconscious bias is really important, and it doesn't negate the reality that there are very conscious biases that exist and impact people's decisions. So I always include that in any conversation that I'm having about bias or any facilitation I'm doing, and the distinction is that conscious bias are things we can state directly. And so, like, once you can say it, it's no longer an unconscious bias. So you'll hear people say, like, "I have an unconscious bias around mothers of young children." Like, "I really just don't want to be hiring mothers of young children."Zach: Right, and that's a conscious bias. You just--you just said it. [laughs]Pamela: Right. Once you've said it it's not unconscious anymore, and it's important for people to reconcile that. You know, you're running interviews, and for all of the candidates of color you're asking them about, like, office etiquette, you know? Appropriate dress attire and showing up to work on time and how to, like, provide good customer service, and then for all of your, like, non-person of color, your white candidates, you're asking them about, like, the substantive job responsibilities, right? And then someone brings it to your attention--because interviews are often done in panel. There's usually more than one person at the interview, which is best practice, and they say, "Hey, I noticed that we spent, like, an inordinate amount of time with some of those candidates talking about what time they need to be at work, and I feel like at this level of a position that's not that significant. And I sort of noticed that you only asked some of them that and not others," and they're like, "Oh. Well, you know, I had this black lady working for me once and she was always late, and I just want to make sure that that doesn't happen again." Right? [laughs] Well, sounds like you've got a bias around that. I mean, once it's been brought to your attention, you don't get to keep doing it. Like, you don't get to keep making decisions through that frame, right? You have to work to mitigate the potential negative impact of that bias. So I think that any conversation around unconscious bias should include discussion about conscious bias and some of the real conscious bias that we have about, you know, employees at work and who should be in roles of authority and power, who should be promoted, or what kind of--you know, whether that is, you know, "We have this big project, but it requires lots of travel. We probably don't want Pamela to do that. She's got those little kids," or "She's taking care of her mother who's sick." Like, there's a bias in that. You should have a conversation with me about that. That affects my employment and my potential and possibilities in the organization. So I just think they come hand-in-hand and one can't be used as an excuse to ignore the other.Zach: No, I think it's just a great point, and I think the reason--so for me, it genuinely grinds my gears, because a lot of times I think D&I is often framed from the context of, again, like, majority comfort. So I believe that there's a lot of language where we kind of--and it's subtle, and it's kind of inserted all across. So diversity of thought, unconscious bias, sometimes in ways to just kind of give folks an out, and so I don't ever--I can tell you I don't ever hear conversations around conscious and unconscious bias. I hear it and it almost just automatically defaults to "unconscious," almost in a way to say, like, "It's not your fault," right? Like, it absolves you of responsibility as opposed to, "Okay, you have some actual biases, and they're true. Like, these are actual real biases that you have and you conduct and you're aware of, and they're not all mistakes," and I think sometimes when you talk about diversity and inclusion, when we're not talking about actual biases--and again, not in a way that tries to make white folks feel bad, but in a way that is just honest, I think that can lead to more productive conversations. We're in an era today where, you know, the 2020 election is coming up. We had a whole--a large part of America came to really see itself four years ago, and I think we have, like, another one of these instances coming up. It's, like, one of the rare times I think in this space that we can start pointing to things and say, "Hey, this is a lightning-rod moment. This is a lightning-rod moment." And I think we would be behooved to figure out a way to be a little bit more honest and intentional with calling out some of these things. I think it's really dope that the way that you frame these conversations is in the context of conscious and unconscious, but I can tell you, like, I have never heard anybody do that.Pamela: Yeah. I think a couple of things as you were talking came to mind. I think, you know, making white folks comfortable is an important part of work around diversity and inclusion, right? I do think we have too many internal conversations that, like, leave out that group of people, and it's important for us to--it's important for them to feel like they can join the conversation and help make progress, right, help make impact, and I think it's a fine line, right? Like, it's a fine line, and I walk it every day in my professional life to ensure that people feel like they can be part of the conversation without being accused of anything, and I work hard to create a space where people feel like they can be vulnerable and sort of divulge biases that they may realize, right, over the course of the conversation that we've had. The other thing that I think is problematic, the other sort of side of this, is, like, the call-out culture, that we don't actually--the more sort of "woke" our culture gets for... you know, lack of--I feel like I date myself when I say "woke." I'm like--Zach: No, it's okay. People will be using "woke" for another 10 years and, you know, most black and brown folks will be off it. It's okay. [both laugh]Pamela: But I think one of the challenges with, like, "woke" culture is that, like, we don't let people make mistakes, and people don't--so I think those two things are counter-balancing. Those things are--like, there's tension there in that, where we want to call things what they are, which I feel--you know, I feel strongly about, like, let's not use euphemisms to describe things. Let's talk about what the challenges are. Like, why is it that even in my unconscious bias work, lots of organizations will say, "Well, we really want to focus on gender diversity," right? Or "We really want to focus on our domestic workforce versus our global workforce." I haven't had, to this point, a single organization... maybe that's not true, but I haven't had very many organizations tell me "We want to talk about race," or, like, "We want to talk about trans people," right? So I think that there are some final frontiers around diversity and inclusion that organizations are not interested in addressing, and we have to get them interested in addressing those things. We have to name that and say, "It's important for us to also talk about race," right? We can't limit-

Zach has the pleasure of sitting down to chat with Dr. Janice Gassam, Ph.D. in an episode themed around discussing emotional labor. She and Zach touch on the concept of self-care, and Dr. Gassam shares a few ways she believes that organizations, aspirational allies, and leaders can help ease the emotional labor lift for black and brown folks in majority-white spaces.Connect with Janice on LinkedIn, Twitter, and Instagram.Check out her articles on Forbes!Visit our website.TRANSCRIPTZach: What's up, y'all? It's Zach with Living Corporate, and yes, we're here. We're back. We're having conversations, you know, that amplify the voices of black and brown people at work, and we do that through what? Now, I'm talking to y'all like this is a live podcast, but this is the part where you would say "by having authentic available transparent conversations with black and brown educators, executives, entrepreneurs, influencers, creatives, activists, and non-melanated or lower-melanted allies," right? People who are advocates of inclusive, diverse, and equitable spaces, and so we do that, right? Like, we have these conversations--honestly, I feel like every time we come on here we have a great guest, and today, today is no different. Today we have Dr. Janice Gassam. Now, listen, Dr. Gassam is a diversity and inclusion consultant and founder of BWG Business Solutions LLC, a company focused on creating strategies to foster an equitable workplace. Gassam is a professor at the Sacred Heart University, teaching courses in diversity and inclusion, performance management, data analytics, and employee engagement. Now, look, let me just go ahead and give y'all some stats, okay? Just real quick so y'all know, 'cause, you know, this is the thing. You know, we're gonna talk about this in the interviewer, but sometimes, you know, folks kind of look at these platforms--and Living Corporate is fairly unique, but they look at this stuff like, "Oh, this is just, you know, passionate stuff," quote-unquote, and it gets dismissed. No, no, no. Dr. Gassam has bonafides, okay? So she has a Ph.D. in organizational psychology, a TedX speaker, and she's authored over 100--listen, yo, 100. 100. Hold on, they're not hearing me. ONE HUNDRED articles. Now, you might say, "Articles on what? Articles on Lipstick Alley?" No. "Articles on Shade Room?" No. Articles on Forbes, what you talking about? [Flex bomb sfx] Okay? She's out here. She's making moves, okay? And listen, she has a competent communicator certificate from Toastmasters International. So not the local spot, okay? Catalyst certification in unconscious bias awareness, has spoken for Yale, H&M, and various other conferences and universities, and she's taught undergraduate and graduate courses in employee engagement, performance management, diversity and inclusion, amongst others. Dr. Gassam, how are you doing? Like, I just gotta--hold on, I gotta at least give you a cheer or something. [applause sfx]Janice: [laughs] Thank you so much, Zach. That was a really nice intro. You made me sound so important, but thank you so much for having me, and it's a pleasure to be here, and I'm really excited to get into this conversation. How are you today?Zach: You know what? I'm doing really, really well. I'm in New Orleans. My cousin-in-law is getting married.Janice: Congraulations. That's fun.Zach: Absolutely.Janice: Are you gonna go to Cafe Du Monde?Zach: Ooh, I might. I may.Janice: Yeah, you gotta have--you gotta. I think it's 24 hours, but the lines are usually pretty long. But if you have a chance, if you're there for a little bit of a time, that would be fun. Wow, that sounds really nice.Zach: It should be great, you know? And this is the challenge, right? So when you get older--so I'm just now hitting 30, right? So you get older and, you know, you can't just kind of eat and do some of the things that, you know... your body, your body sends you a memo later like, "Ayo, I know you tried to be cute earlier, but it ain't happening now. You've got an appointment now, so what's up? And now your knee hurting and you don't know why," right? But no, I'm doing great. How are you doing? What do you got going on these days?Janice: I'm doing good. I aim for seven hours of sleep, seven to eight hours, so I got my seven hours. Today I have to do--I'm writing some articles. I did some Forbes interviews, so I have to just transcribe them, and then I have grading of course. So that should be--should keep me pretty busy.Zach: Okay. Okay, all right. Now, look, it can't just slay by itself. You gotta put in the work, and you're doing it, so we appreciate you. So thank you.Janice: Thank you so much.Zach: No, no doubt. So look, let's get into it. You've established a deep brand in diversity, equity, and inclusion. Your profile--at what point in your life did you realize that this was the work that you wanted to do and why? Like, what led you to come to this point and create this brand for yourself?Janice: Well, I guess sometimes people ask me this question, and I think it's a combination of the fact that I come from a--my parents come from Cameroon, which is a West African country, so I--throughout growing up I kind of grappled with not being Cameroonian enough, you know? Because I don't speak the language, I don't cook Cameroonian food, and I didn't really know a lot about the culture growing up because I was born and raised here in America. So I think that that combination of the different culture, as well as, you know, growing up in predominantly white neighborhoods and going to predominantly white schools and also just recognizing my blackness, it's almost like--DuBois talked about, in "The Souls of Black Folks," a double consciousness that black people in America experience where it's kind of like they have to grapple with their own blackness as well as being a black person in a white America, and I think it was, like, a triple consciousness. So trying to figure out where--you know, where I fit in the black sort of scope as well as, you know, trying to assimilate to white America, and I did a lot of that in school, you know, so that I would be accepted and then also embracing my culture and being true to my culture and that aspect of my background. So I think that that combination always made me really interested in diversity and inclusion. In 2011 I started a YouTube channel where I talked primarily on race and quote-unquote black issues and things that I felt were relevant to the black community, and I've kind of scaled back, and I haven't made a video probably in six or seven months, but I still, you know, post videos on there here and there, and I was able to cultivate a pretty loyal and strong audience. I had about 20,000 subscribers on that channel, but-- [ow sfx] I actually moved my focus to corporate diversity and inclusion because I saw that there were holes in the system when I would work in different companies. I noticed certain things. So I guess my focus moved from sort of these issues that are relevant to black America to "How do I fix these issues in corporate America?" Zach: And it's just such critical work. First of all, let me take a step back. So I think it's interesting when you think about, like, just black identity, underrepresented identity, and just all of the nuance of that, just of your own identity period. Like, let's just--not talking about within the context of any other social framework, but you have yourself, your own lived experience, which is complex, and then you're placing that within a context of being, like, in a white majority, and then--I don't know. It's just a lot, and I wonder--and it kind of leads me to my next question. When you talk about, like--when we talk about this space in diversity and inclusion and we talk about really kind of taking these conversations that black America is having--and I'm not trying to exclude other non-white spaces, but I'ma speak to black America because that's the experience that I live in. So historically over the past, I don't know, what, 100 and something odd years, like, we've had thought leaders talk about and have these internal conversations or in-house conversations about what it means to be black, and then of course we've had--you know, we're knocking on the door today, but there have been people who knocked on the door before us having these conversations and bringing these discussions to light. I guess my question is, as I look at your profile, do you ever see or feel a sense of being in, like, two worlds at once? And these two worlds that I'm talking about is one I'm seeing, like, a bit of--I'm seeing, like, one camp when it comes to this corporate D&I space, this corporatized D&I space that is very heady. It's very academic, and it's largely white and institutionalized a bit. And then there's this other group that's continuing to grow and build that is more activist in its function and more driven and founded by themes of justice, and also driven by themes of lived experience. When I look at your profile, and even what you just shared about you being a first-generation American and you being a first-generation professional, like, a first-generation in a variety of ways, but also having this academic background, do you see yourself straddling both of these worlds? Do you see--I mean, I'm kind of making an assumption that you even agree with my analysis of, like, corporate D&I. I'm just curious about, like, how do you see yourself as you operate in this space?Janice: No, absolutely. I have a close friend who, you know, I've been doing these diversity dinner dialogues in New York City, which is just, like, a free workshop where anyone who has an interest in diversity and inclusion can come. You know, we talk about a specific topic. Papa John's sponsors it, and in doing that I actually got to know a girl who has become one of my close friends. Her name is Donna. She's getting her Ph.D. in psychology, but her dissertation focuses on corporate diversity training, and she's looking specifically at how receptive people are when the trainer is not a diverse person, so is a white person or seemingly a white person. And going back to your point, I do agree. I think that unfortunately, any time you're talking about diversity, equity and inclusion, I think people are more receptive to the message when it comes from a white person. That's just unfortunately, you know, what it is. If I'm talking about, or you're talking about your lived experience, I think that people put more stock in when a white person says those things or finally realizes that there are inequities that are taking place. I do commend--not to take anything away from white people who are in this space who are using their privilege to amplify the voices of people of color, but I just think it's something that's important to note, that in this space I do think that there is sort of, like, a hierarchy, and I think that, you know, unfortunately black people are at the bottom of that hierarchy, and I think that when it comes to issues that are relevant, specifically to black people and people of color, those get prioritized last, and I think that that's unfortunate. People don't understand that you can be a marginalized group but still be racist. So I think that it's important to understand those sorts of things. I don't know, I guess, what the solution is, but it's just something that I've noticed.Zach: No, straight up. And it's interesting too. So your point around, like, hierarchy, 'cause even as I talk to other diversity, equity and inclusion professionals, right? Like, something that people will jump out [?] any time we have these conversations. It's almost like a point of pride or, like, particular insight when people say something like, you know, "Diversity and inclusion just isn't about ethnicity and race," and I'm like, "Well, wait... okay, it's not, you're right. Can we also acknowledge that ethnicity and race have played a critical part in, like, America's formation and policy structure and even today. I'm not saying that the other diversity [?] don't exist, but it's like people are so excited to, like, get away from that and then talk about "It's about diversity of education, and geography, and hair color," and--Janice: [laughing] "Diversity of thought."Zach: My gosh, diversity of thought. You know, I keep--you know, look, the government, they made--I'm serious, they made crack and diversity of thought in the same lab. They did. It's crazy. It's nuts.Janice: Right? That's a great way to put it, yeah. I think it's really easy to, like, divert the conversation, and that's why I think I like to do these diversity dinners and focus specifically on an issue, because I think when you're talking about, for example, allyship, allyship, that conversation--people think of allies more so as allies in that LGBTQIA+ community, but any marginalized group needs allies, and I think that when you don't focus specifically on race or ethnicity and you bring up the diversity conversation, I think people like to divert it and say, "Well, you know, you also have to be inclusive to this group and that group and that group," and I totally agree and I understand that, but I think that there are very unique challenges that people of color, and particularly black people, in this country face in that the main way that people are able to see that we are black is our skin color, you know? If you're part of a marginalized group where your identity is invisible, I do think that your experiences are vastly different from an individual like me or like you who our skin color is apparent to anyone that looks at us, and I don't think that it's--you know, I guess I'm not the type of person that likes to say who is struggling the most or likes to play the oppression politics, but I do think that that is an important point that needs to be acknowledged. Just because you're part of a marginalized group doesn't mean that our experiences are the same, you know? And I think that sometimes people like to say, "Well, look, I'm oppressed too. I have this particular invisible identity," and it's like--we might have similar experiences, but we also have vastly different experiences, and I think that sometimes that's overlooked. Even when I come in and do these corporate workshops related to diversity, I am always encouraged to not focus on race. And I recently had a consultation--so when people reach out to me to do a workshop, they'll schedule a call and then kind of figure out what I'm about, what topics I can speak to for their corporate audience, and I was specifically told recently to not victimize people in the workshop. So, you know, people don't want to be victimized. People don't want to feel like the finger is pointed at them. And sometimes people don't really want to directly address race, and I recognize and understand that. Before I was kind of, like--I didn't really quite understand that, but I know that, you know, when you come into a room and say to somebody, "Because you're part of this race, you have privilege, and your people have systematically and systemically oppressed," you know, based on the history. People shut down, and there's resistance, so it's almost like you kind of have to--I don't have any kids, but I know that sometimes when you have kids and you don't want to eat the food or take the medicine, you can kind of put sugar around it with the medicine and give that to them. So it's almost [?] diversity and inclusion. You have to give the sugar with the hard, I guess, lessons and the hard realities, because people get very defensive.Zach: And so then--so let's talk about that a little bit more. You shared the idea that folks will tell you, "Hey, just don't talk about it." Like, how do those requests come about? How do they frame it?Janice: Sometimes they're very great, [laughs] and other times it's more subtle, where I give them a list of topics--and of course, you know, I've been on YouTube since 2011 just talking in front of my camera about quote-unquote black issues and how--you know, racial dynamics, so it's a topic I feel very passionately about, but when I give them my list of topics that range from, you know, micro-aggressions to how to have conversations about race in the workplace to how to get the ROI of your diversity programs to emotional intelligence, what I've noticed is typically people like me to talk about emotional intelligence versus--and I think emotional intelligence is definitely an important topic, but it's not something that's difficult to digest, you know? It's not something that's gonna make people feel uncomfortable. So it's kind of like, "These are my lists of topics," and just in choosing the topics, you know, they'll reach out to me and say, "Could you do a talk on this?" or "Could you do a workshop on this?" And it's never been some of those more difficult-to-swallow concepts like race, because--and I understand, you know, you want your audience to be receptive to it, and unfortunately people really aren't receptive to conversations about race unless it's a white person giving it. A good example of that is--I showed my students the Chelsea Handler documentary that just came out on white privilege. I think that's what it's called, "Me and My White Privilege" or something like that. [Editor's note: it's "Hello Privilege. It's Me, Chelsea"] So I showed it to them. There was a particular clip where Chelsea interviewed some conservative women from Orange County, California, and they were saying people of color get privileges like school admissions, like jobs. They were referring to this myth that affirmative action is reverse racism. And so, you know, I showed them that clip, and then I spoke to how all of the things that were said in that clip were just factually incorrect, and affirmative action wasn't created to give unfair advantages to people of color and women who are not qualified, and also white women benefit the most from affirmative action. So I think that just watching that whole documentary, the reception has been interesting, because I think if someone like Kevin Hart or Dave Chappelle or, you know, any other comedian did a documentary on race, I don't think it would have gotten the same reception as Chelsea Handler's documentary, and I think that that's unfortunate.Zach: It's interesting too, because I was having a conversation with some majority folks, right? And they were talking about the documentary, and they said, "Well, you know, I don't know. Part of me is like, you know, 'Is this just another schtick?' Like, 'Is she even really being serious and authentic,' right? Like, how honest is this really?'" But then also there were people who watched it and really, you know, thought it was just groundbreaking and courageous and innovative and all of these other words. [laughing]Janice: It's interesting. I thought it was--it was just interesting. I think that when she was speaking with the women in that particular scene who were saying these things, she didn't really dispel what they were saying. They were like, "Well, you know, everyone has privilege, and it's not just white people," and Chelsea wasn't--I think she could have been more direct with dispelling their myths, and it's just incorrect to say that black people are getting--people of color are being treated, you know, better than white people in this country, 'cause that's just not true.Zach: That's just factually false.Janice: [?] You look at the rate of arrests. You look at who gets jailed, the amount of time that's given. If you just look at our criminal justice system, it's so apparent. You know, and what is her name? I'm forgetting the author's name, but she specifically talks about looking at the demographics of people who were pulled over and arrested driving on the New Jersey turnpike where they did this extensive study, and they found that, of course, the majority of those people were black and brown men. So just, like, it's obvious that those women are living in, like, their own delusion, and I think that maybe if I was sort of encapsulated in my own white America and I didn't interact--'cause obviously I don't interact really with anyone of color--I would probably have those same falsehoods as well, and one thing that I try to remind myself is that I can't really fault white people for not caring about certain issues because, in their minds, they think that it's not relevant to them. So we're--you know, humans are self-motivated, and we focus on things that we think will impact us. I think the fallacy is thinking that it doesn't affect them, because if Trump is spewing this rhetoric, or if our politicians are doing something that negatively impacts [one group?] people, ultimately that's gonna impact you in other ways. So I think that, like, there's this false idea that diversity and inclusion doesn't impact you or you're not--you don't have to be involved in the conversation, but I think that--you know, that famous quote that somebody said where it's like, "If one group is oppressed, we're all oppressed." You know, "If one group is not free, none of us are free." So I think that it's that. It's just that these women in that clip didn't understand how, like, we're all interconnected.Zach: No, you're absolutely right, and there's multiple points of evidence that we can look at to talk about just, like, disparity and inequity and disparate treatment for black and brown people juxtaposed to white folks, right? So you have--of course you have prison, just the criminal justice system. You also have, like, health care and treatment. You have access to public transportation. You have just general public school education. You have access to food. So just, like, neighborhoods that are--you know, you have food deserts. Like, those are real things, and they're impacted by race. So 100%. So, Janice, diversity, equity and inclusion is broad, and you talked about earlier that you cover a variety of things. You speak on a variety of things. Can we zoom in on a topic really quick? Let's talk about the emotional labor of black and brown DEI professionals, particularly women, in this, like, diversity, equity, and inclusion space, right? Like, I'd really like to talk about that. Are you down?Janice: Yeah, sure.Zach: Cool. So in the history of the show, you know, I've brought up the concept of emotional labor, but I've just said it. Like, I'll be like, "You know, people don't really consider the emotional labor." And I've talked about it with colleagues at my job. I've talked about it with friends. But, like, can we--but I don't think I've ever taken the time to really explain what emotional labor is, like, as a concept. Would you mind talking a little bit about what you believe--like, what is your definition of emotional labor?Janice: Absolutely. So it's funny you ask this, because at the recent diversity dinner dialogue I had this week there was a diversity professional. He works at a large consulting firm, and he asked what we--he posed the question to everyone who was there, and he said "What do you do for self-care?" Because D&I work is very exhausting, so what do you do as self-care? And, you know, one thing that I realized is that I never really escape it, because I feel, like you said, it's our lived experience, so any time I--and I don't watch TV, but when I open my phone to go onto Instagram, you know, the people that I follow are a lot of these--like, Shaun King, and, like, a lot of these, the [?] show. So people who report on news that's related to black people. So sometimes I just find myself scrolling past stuff, because--especially Shaun King stuff--I don't always have the bandwidth for it, and if I've had a long day and I'm just not in the mood for my day to be ruined, I have to scroll past stuff. But also, like, for me, I think fellowship is a really important part of just dealing with the emotional labor of it. I think fellowship with my fellow black and brown people, it just helps me, 'cause it's almost like when you're around people--when you're around the majority, it's almost like--I saw a picture where someone had, like, a mask on--a black person, it's like when they go into corporate America you put your mask on, and then when you get home you take your mask off. So I feel like when you're around your friends you're free to take the mask off and just, you know, explain what you're going through at work, and my friends and I, we talk a lot about our work experiences, and I--you know, my experience is a little different since I'm not necessarily in corporate America. I'm in academia and then I do consulting. And academia has its same politics, but it's a little bit different, but listening to--you know, I have a close friend who works at Uber, and just listening to all of my different friends' experiences, I'm just like, "Wow. This is really, really interesting," and, I mean, in a weird way, the fellowship helps me to sort of cope with some of these--the work that I do. So that really helps me. And also--it sounds weird, but I'm really big with sleep. [laughs] I always try to get my 7-8 hours, 'cause I think that--and there's research that indicates that when we're under stress, when we're not getting enough rest, we're sick, we're more likely to--our thinking isn't as sharp and as crisp, and interestingly people are more likely to fall into discriminatory behaviors when they're sleep-deprived. So I always try to make sure that I'm in--or, you know, as much as I can that I'm getting enough sleep, I'm getting enough rest, I'm going to the gym, even when I don't feel like going, to make sure that I'm treating my body as well, because there is this idea that, you know, in our society, you're not productive unless you're busy, and I really try to emphasize the importance of sleep and rest, especially when you're doing something as taxing as diversity and inclusion work or just being a person of color in a workplace that--you know, even if your work doesn't relate to diversity and inclusion, that's exhausting in itself. So I think that those are really important for me, sometimes just scrolling past those pages and those things that will bring me more stress, getting rest, and then just the fellowship.Zach: And so then do you think--do you think that the concept of emotional labor is explored enough, like, within, like, diversity and inclusion, and then also, like, as a concept when we talk to companies and clients and other organizations?Janice: I don't. I don't think that it's--and it doesn't really happen as much to me. Sometimes when I'm on a plane and I'm reading a certain book, someone might see something and comment, but I've seen sometimes where D&I professionals are wearing a shirt that makes a really bold statement and someone makes a comment about the shirt, and it's like--it's exhausting because sometimes you're out and you don't want to have a conversation about diversity and inclusion, but somehow it gets to that conversation. So I think that people just assume that because this is something you do for a living or you enjoy doing that you want to talk about it 24/7, and that's not always the case. So I think that it's not something that's explored enough and in enough detail.Zach: And so then, like, you know, what does fatigue look like? Like, you've been in this space for a while. Like, at what points do you realize, like, "Hey, I really need to," you know, engage in what is restorative for you. So you taking a break, you getting off social media, you sleeping a little bit more. Like, what are the signs of fatigue for you personally?Janice: I think when I have an opportunity that's presented to me, and instead of being excited I just--I'm already anticipating how tired I will be after the opportunity, that's a good indication that maybe I need to sort of slow down. And yeah, I think that would be the main thing for me. Sometimes people will reach out and say, "Oh, can you do this?" And it's an amazing opportunity, but I'm just like, "Oh, I have so much on my plate," so I can't--in my mind I'm like, "I can [?] do it," you know? And it's just--for me it's just sometimes I need to learn, one thing I need to learn is--Shonda Rhimes has a book called The Year of Yes. I need a Year of No, and I need to just--sometimes it's really powerful to just say no to things that you know will leave you drained and overwhelmed, even if you feel like it's for a good cause or it's for the greater good or it will benefit the person or the group that is getting the service. I think sometimes just saying no or just saying "No, not right now," is really helpful for me. So that's an indicator to me of when I've kind of, like, reached my point of exhaustion.Zach: That's just a really good point. I think, especially when you talk about these types of spaces, right, you know, people will reach out to you for a variety of things, and 99.9% of them are gonna be good, but--and so because they're genuinely good things, it's hard to say no, but it's like, "Man, I'm only one person." Right? Like, I don't have an inexhaustible amount of energy. I have to create some space for myself. Let's talk about this, and I really want to get back to something that you said earlier in the conversation. So you said sometimes people reach out to you asking you to talk about specific things. Are there ever any moments where you consider your profile, right? When you consider, like, the work that you've done in academia as well as your personal life and your journey and your lived experience? Do you ever battle feelings or insecurities around being tokenized?Janice: I don't. It's interesting. That's not something I--I think that even if you're choosing me for this particular role or you're asking me to do this because you want to check some boxes, I'm still gonna achieve the ultimate goal. So I think that I don't really look at the vehicle. I just look at, you know, "Am I able to accomplish or achieve this goal?" I recognize and understand that there is a possibility that maybe the powers that be saw what I look like and said, "Okay, we need this person so we look like we're being diverse and inclusive," but ultimately getting the opportunity to sort of try to push the needle and move the needle forward when it comes to building a more inclusive culture is fine with me. So it doesn't matter to me if the goal was to check some boxes, because I'm still gonna go in there and do what I really need to do and what I want to do. So I try not to think about that, because I think for me, if I started thinking about that, it would be, like, a never-ending rabbit hole of, like, "Are they really choosing me for my credentials, or did they see that I'm a black female and they want to check some boxes?" So I try not to think like that, because ultimately I'm like, "I'm gonna come in here and do what I'm supposed to do," and I try to just come in and do an amazing job so that even if they were trying to--even if the purpose was just to check the boxes, they'll see, like, what a strong, you know, worker I am, or what a strong consultant I am, and they'll understand that they made the right decision.Zach: I hear that, and what I'm taking away from that also is just, like, you know, people can choose you for whatever motivations they have. It's about how you decide to show up in that moment, right? Janice: Exactly.Zach: Yeah. It's interesting, you know? Like, transparently, I have those--it's something I struggle with, right? I struggle with the idea of "Man, like, why would you choose me?" But then, to your point, I know for me, like, I have a fairly specific brand, so when I show up, like, there's a story that I'm gonna tell. There's a way that I'm going to move. There's a way that I'm going to work. And, you know, we'll see how comfortable you are with that, and if you're not comfortable with that and you decide you want something else then, you know, that's fine too, but I have to show up and deliver on who I am and then, you know, let the chips fall where they may after that. Okay, so we're talking about emotional labor. We're talking about self-care and kind of getting those energies back. I think something that's, like, really understated as well at work for diversity and inclusion professionals, and just black and brown people in general, right? So even if you're not explicitly in diversity and inclusion, like, a space, but just at work, is the emotional labor of just being other in majority-white spaces, right? So, like, I'm curious, what are ways that you believe that organizations and that aspirational allies as well as just leaders can help ease the emotional labor lift for black and brown folks in these spaces?Janice: I think it goes back to organizations really trying to make us feel included. In my university--and I teach in a business department [where] there's no other black females. There's other women of color, a few who are of Indian--one who's of Indian descent and one who is Chinese, but they're--we're, like, one of few, and then at the university, I don't know how many tenured black professors there are, but there are very, very few. So I think that one thing that organizations can do is just try to take additional steps to make people who are the only feel included. So I'll give you an example. I was working at a university in New York City that when I started they said that they needed more diversity and inclusion. They needed the faculty to look like the student body. And this is a public school in New York City. It's part of a large university system. So most of the students come from different backgrounds, you know? There's lots of black and brown students, and the professors just didn't reflect that. One student told me that I was the first--a black student told me that I was the first black professor he's ever had. So, you know, I got there and they said, "Oh, we really want diversity," and then they didn't do anything to make me feel included. It was like they [tired?] me and dropped me off. My office was in--and little micro-aggressive behaviors. I'm no longer there, but I was in the Psychology department at that university, but my office was in the English department. There was no name on my office. And even though I was visiting faculty--so it's kind of, like, not guaranteed that they'll renew your contract--I was teaching more than any other professor in that department. I was also teaching during the winter intersession. So normally you get, like, a month off. I was literally--like, I had a week and a half off, and then January 2nd or 3rd I had to--Zach: You were back at it. Wow.Janice: So, like, I think that the inclusion piece is so important, because companies just look at the diversity on the surface and say, "We don't need a diversity program. We have lots of black people. We have lots of people from Asia. We have lots of this and that," and it's like, "But do they feel included?" That's really the important part. So I think that where companies miss the mark is that inclusion piece. So the university that I'm at now, Sacred Heart University, I think that they've done an amazing job with making me feel included. Even though I'm one of the only, I'm frequently invited--you know, they always have, like, off-campus events for faculty members, and if someone's retiring they have these parties and all of that, and it's just like--the department chair will reach out and say, you know, "Janice, are you gonna come to this?" Or "Would you like to join this committee?" And I just feel like--last year was my first year working there full-time, and they were just so--all of the faculty members, on their own, would come by my office. I'm sure they're like, "Who is this?" I look younger than I am, so people think I'm in my 20s, and I'm 32. So people are like, "Who is this young black girl with these [fauxlocks?] sitting in the office? Like, what?" So they'll come up to me and just say, "Hey, how are you? What's your name?" They'll give me their card, they'll connect with me on LinkedIn, and that's not something that I experienced at this other university that I worked at. So I think that they really made me feel a sense of inclusion, even though I was the only. Literally it was, like, a line of professors [?] where my office used to be. I know I was the only black woman on that floor. I didn't see any other black women. So, you know, just making me feel--including me, inviting me to things, trying to just, you know, check on me. And just really quick, Ernst & Young did a study where they tried to measure belonging that people feel in the workplace. So they developed something called the Belonging Barometer, and what their research found--this was last year that it came out--so what their research found is that the #1 way to make employees feel a sense of belonging is frequent check-ups. So if you are a manager or you're another employee and you come to the office of someone and say, "Hey, how are you? How was your weekend?" And you do this frequently, that is the best way to make employees feel a sense of belonging. So I think that at my university, my colleagues do that a lot, and that's what really makes me feel like--even though I'm the only, they're really making me feel like I'm part of a family.Zach: So first of all, you know, thank you for sharing that. You know, I'm curious. When you were going through the experience at the previous institution, did any of it feel like you were being gaslit a little bit? Like, did you raise any of these concerns? Like, "Hey, you got me all the way over here in this other group," and "Hey, I don't have a name on my door." Like, did you raise any of those things?Janice: No, I didn't, unfortunately, and a part of me felt just so--and I'm sure many of us as people of color feel like this--I honestly was, like, grateful that I had a job, 'cause I hadn't finished my Ph.D. yet. I was grateful I had a job. I was earning more money than I had ever earned in my entire life. I graduated with my Ph.D. when I was 30, so I was literally--most of my life I was in school, so I was used to, you know, not having health insurance. You know, when I moved to New York, I didn't have health insurance. So, you know, all of these things. I was grateful to have benefits, grateful to have a job, grateful to have my own office. That was a new experience for me. So I guess I didn't say anything. Not I guess, I didn't say anything, just because I was so grateful for the opportunity that I was afraid if I pointed these inequities out that that opportunity would be taken away from me. So I know that many times people of color, black people in particular, are in positions where maybe you didn't think you would get this far, and you have opportunities to sort of speak up, but you're worried that, by speaking up, it could jeopardize your job or jeopardize your opportunity, and that's how I felt, so I didn't say anything. I knew that in my mind I wasn't gonna be at that university for a long period of time, so I think that's what kept me going. I was just like, "This is a stepping stone," and ultimately it was, and I left that--I was only there for a year, and they didn't renew my contract, probably because I didn't finish--I hadn't finished my Ph.D., but I knew that it was temporary. Zach: So it's such a real point, right? Because I know there's--I mean, it's for good reason, right? So, like, black and brown folks, we'll get into these positions and we're like--and it's more than we've ever had before. So, like, not comparing--not relative to anyone else, just our own journey. Like, this is a peak, right? Relative to what we've experienced. And so then we're like, "Okay, well, you know, I don't want to say anything because this almost seems too good to be true already, so I don't want to mess this up."Janice: Right, exactly. Imagine if you had a job at, like, Google. Google is--like, you know, who wouldn't want to work at Google? And you're being treated unfairly by your manager or by co-workers and you felt like, "I never imagined being at this company. Let me just keep my mouth [shut]." Which a lot of us do. We're just like, "Let me keep my mouth shut," but Google is a company that I want to be at for a while, so it's like, what do you do? Especially--the easy thing, and, you know, when I hear people giving advice as far as, like, how to advocate for yourself, sometimes I hear people saying, "Just quit," and I think that that's ultimately what's gonna have to happen, but for some people that's not an option. If you're the sole bread-winner in your family and many people are relying on you and you're feeding many mouths, I think quitting sounds nice, but it's not practical, especially if you don't have anything else lined up. You just have to figure out--and then it goes back to the self-care. Because you're experiencing so much stress at work, what are you doing outside of work to sort of mitigate the stress that you're experiencing? And for me, that was one of the hardest years of my life because I had just moved to Connecticut. I was teaching in New York City, so I was commuting--it's only an hour commute on the train, but I was commuting to New York City every single day, and I was also teaching in Long Island, because they were--you know, ultimately they were underpaying me, they were overworking me, and then to supplement that I was so--there was a point in time where I was teaching seven courses, which, you know, anyone who teaches at the university level knows, like, three courses per semester is, like--three or four is, like, a very full courseload. Seven is, like, next level. I was teaching on Saturdays. It was, like, insane, the amount of classes that I was teaching, but my form of self-care was, you know, I was going to the gym a lot, and I was just--you know, a lot of fellowship, meeting up with friends, because, you know, the reality of it was that they were severely--you know, moving from universities, Zach, I was able to increase my salary by $30,000. They were underpaying me, like, a ridiculous amount, you know? And when I brought it up--that's something I did bring up when I was hired. I was like, "Why does my contract say this amount?" And the department chair was like, "Oh, well, you're paid based on a scale." It was a public university. So they base it off your teaching experience, your credentials, and because I didn't have a Ph.D. blah blah blah blah blah. So, you know, I did try to advocate for myself in that sense, but it was just kind of like, "Sorry, this is what you're gonna get paid," and I was just like, "Okay. Well, to supplement this, I'm gonna work at these other universities to get what I think that I deserve." So it was--it was really difficult. I think it's easy to say quit, but for many people quitting is not an option. So I think really going into what you're doing for self-care when you're experiencing this stress is important, and then I think planning your exit strategy. So if it's Google, maybe you want to have a year or two years or three years on your resume, but you know the environment is toxic. I wouldn't say just leave. I would say get that on your resume and build as many connections there as you can, but plan your exit strategy and save up money. If you really think that you have to leave at some point in the near future and you don't know if you'll have a backup job, then just plan, save up money. Make sure you do what you can so that, you know, when that day comes you're ready and it's not just like you made the decision off of a whim.Zach: It's just so true, right? 'Cause I know--I've seen it, and honestly I've done it, right? Like, where I've been in, like, really toxic environments, and I just left, but I left on--I didn't leave on the terms I wanted to leave on, right? So I wasn't prepared, right? I didn't have the financial backing that I wanted to have. You know, I just wasn't in the place that I wanted to be, but I finally just left. And that happens a lot, especially with our generation, right? Like, millennials, you know? 'Cause we'll just kind of bottle--especially what I've seen from black and brown folks is we'll just kind of bottle it up until we can't take it anymore, and then we'll just--you know, we'll leave. We'll just blow up and just quit, right? And you're right, like, that's not a sustainable way to function. I think the other point that you called out is super true, and I think it just really speaks to the different lived experiences of different folks, right, is that you said "Just quit." Like, for me, I'm a big advocate--I'll tell people to quit, right? But it's easy for me to tell people to quit when I'm a black American, my mom--I'm not sending money to my mom, right? Like, I don't have--it's just me and my wife, and my wife works. So it's like, if I quit my job, #1: I know that I could get another job very quickly, and so I'm projecting that on other people. Like, "You're only responsible for yourself," but that's not true. Right? Like, that's just not true. You have people--like, I have a really good friend who she's paying her mom's mortgage, her mom's health care. She's sending money back to her family in Nigeria. Like, she's doing all of these things on her very modest salary, and it's a toxic work environment, but she can't just leave. Janice: Mm-hmm, yeah. You know, sometimes people comment on my social media and they're like, "Why are we trying to change these white institutions? They don't want us there. Why don't we just build our own institutions?" And I'm all for that, but I think the reality of it is every single black and brown person is not going to be working in a black and brown-led institution, so what are we doing for those, you know, people of color who are not in those black-owned businesses? How are we creating an environment for them where that is sustainable? So I think that that's also an important point to look at, just really how are we overcoming, because the reality of it is that's just not what it is right now. You know, every single person is not at a black-owned company.Zach: No, you're absolutely right. I know, like, even when Living Corporate started, right, like, a couple of critiques that we got early was "Why are you trying to teach people how to navigate these white spaces as opposed to trying to help people to build their own?" I'm like, "Okay, look. First of all, we can look at the history of America and we can see that there's been historical pushes that black and brown people--" Black folks, we've been creating our own things since antebellum, okay? So we've been building our own churches, our own fraternities, sororities, our own businesses, our own communities, and there's been a consistent whitelash against that. Now, that doesn't mean that we're gonna stop. We don't stop, and black businesses and entrepreneurship continues to grow. However, we also know because of historical inequity--it's just the way that white supremacy and patriarchy are set up--that those institutions will never be as big as Amazon. I won't say never, but it will be a long time before they're as big as an Amazon or a Google or even a Facebook, right? Like, that's just not the way it works, and so--I believe that underrepresented folks helped build this country. It is 100% reasonable and fair to have discussions about what does it look like for us to thrive here. None of these things would exist without us, so it is reasonable--I don't think it's one or the other. I think it's both and, but it's a fine and right discussion and pursuit on what does it look like to thrive in these spaces. Like you said earlier, like, everyone's not gonna be working at a black and brown place. Every black and brown person is not gonna be an entrepreneur, just like every white person isn't an entrepreneur. So, you know, most of us are gonna work for somebody, so waht does it look like when you work for somebody and likely--because again, we're in America--it's likely going to be a majority-owned space. What does it look like for you to be successful there?Janice: Absolutely, yeah. I think that that's--it falls on both, because I think that--and that's probably a whole 'nother conversation, because even marginalized groups hold negative views about their own identities, for example. Like, there's many negative stereotypes that black people ourselves perpetuate, and even if we're leading a company, we may have colorism issues, or we may be [?]. So there's, like--even if you're in a black-owned institution, white supremacy can still be rampant, and I think us understanding that is important too. 'Cause I get those comments sometimes where, you know, people are like, "Why are you trying to do this and do that?" And even with companies--you know, some people have asked me why I allowed or accepted a partnership with Papa John's when the CEO is obviously--the former CEO, I'm sorry, is probably racist, and I said, you know, "If this company is going to try to make amends and is going to try--" And, you know, they've done other initiatives where they're trying to really show that now they're focused on diversity and inclusion. I'm not gonna say no, and I'm not gonna say, "I'll never take your money." They've hired a black woman as their chief diversity officer. They've hired a Ghandian man as their chief branding officer. Shaq is now on their board of directors. The CEO is no longer on the board. So they've been doing things. You know, they donate to HBCUs. So different things that I'm like, "Okay, I can accept that they're trying to fix what it is." But I think that it's tough, because it's like, do we forgive companies where they have many egregious actions that the CEO has committed? Do we forgive them, or do we just move on and just cancel them? I think that that's an important question to think about.Zach: It is, right? But I guess here's my challenge with that. So first of all, like, when you're talking about getting that money from Papa John's, the only thing I was thinking about was [cha-ching sfx]. Like, listen. [laughs] This is my whole thing, right? So I don't think that, like, we really talk about, like, how capitalist America is, right? Like, you need money to survive. Like, you need money to do anything, and so, you know, if you want to say, "Okay, well, I'm not gonna take this money from Papa John's," okay, so are you gonna take this money from Johnson & Johnson? Are you gonna take this money from--[laughs] like, all of America was built on slavery and oppression and exploitation of black and brown people, and people of color as well. So, like, including Asian-Americans too. So, like, we wouldn't have any of this. So, like, if you wanted to, like, again--I don't like saying the term "slippery slope," but my whole thing is, for me, if you're going to give me the bag--if you give me the bag, as long as you know that I'm not gonna adjust my message and you're not asking me to adjust my message or expecting me to adjust my message, I'ma take the bag, right? Now, there are certain groups, you know, that I'm not taking the bag from. Like, I've had people--you know what? This is, like, breaking news. I haven't told anybody on Living Corporate this. So, you know, someone actually hit me up and wanted to get Candace Owens on here, and I said--Janice: Really?Zach: Yeah, and I said no.Janice: Wow. That's interesting.Zach: I said no. I said, "You big buggin'."Janice: [?] Living Corporate. Interesting. What are your thoughts on--I have my own thoughts [both laughing] on her. I watched her--did you watch the Revolt summit that she was [in?]Zach: I did. I did see her up there being loud and wrong.Janice: Yes, yeah. But one thing that I didn't like was I think when you bring people with opposing views, you have to allow them the opportunity to at least speak, even, like--and my husband disagrees with me. He's like, "She's lying. She's full of lies. Why even give her the opportunity or the platform?" And I'm like, "Well, that's why they brought her up there."Zach: They brought her up there though. So if you're gonna bring 'em up there, then you gotta let 'em talk.Janice: Yeah, and that's why--and my husband's like, "No, but she's just blatantly lying," and I'm just like, "Yeah, but they brought her up there to speak," and I think that--that's interesting. Did you tell the person no? Or did you say you'll think about it?Zach: Oh, no, no. I said "Hell nah." Like, off the top. [laughs] All the Southern in me came out, 'cause it was like, "No," right? Like, I'm not doing that.Janice: Yeah. That's interesting. I wonder what she would speak to, because as far as I know she's not in corporate America. She just, you know, does these talks, or she has her YouTube channel and she--but, you know, that's interesting. [laughs]Zach: So then the same person was like, "Well, I'm also friends with Ben Carson. Would you like to have him on?" I was like, "No." I said, "No," and I said, "No," because I was like, "Look, one, that association is not making any sense." Like, "We're not--it's not gonna be a conversation. It's gonna be me tearing down some old black man. That's not cool." Because I literally don't agree with anything he's doing. So I was like--but this is my thing. So, like, at that level, I'm like, "No. I'm not taking a bag from them." But, like, a Papa John's? Yes, I'll take a bag from Papa John's. Facebook? Yes, I'll take a bag from Facebook.Janice: Yeah. Yeah, because I think the difference between Ben Carson and Candace Owens and Papa John's is that--and even Kanye West if you want to think about it--I haven't really seen any of them be apologetic. They're just like, "This is who I am," and they're gonna go on as many platforms as we'll let them speak. So it seems like your audience I don't think would be receptive to that and would just be like, you know, "Zach, you're just trying to get them on to get more clicks."Zach: For the clout, exactly. Janice: Exactly, so I think that with Papa John's and some of these other companies, they realize they've made a mistake and they're, like, trying to fix it, and I think that that's what would make me--I don't know. It's tough. I don't think we should just cancel companies where the CEO says or does something that is, you know--Zach: You need the bag. I think that goes back to what I was saying at the top. Like, look, we live in a capitalistic society. Like, if someone goes, "Hey, I messed up, and this is what I'm trying to do, and I really want to get around--" Like, "I'm trying to make moves," and whatever whatever, and there's a bag out there for you to--like, if the former CEO of Papa John's wanted to come on here and let me talk to him and grill him about why he said what he said, his background, what he's doing now to actually create an impact, like, today, if we could have that conversation, like, an accountable, frank conversation, and what advice he would give to other white senior leaders and executives on how to drive and be more inclusive and be more aware of their own biases, anti-blackness, et cetera, if we could have that type of conversation, he's more than welcome to come on the show.Janice: Absolutely.Zach: You see what I'm saying? The current inclusion and diversity leader for Papa John's? Of course they're welcome to come on the show, but like you said, like, someone coming on just to be like, "Nah, I'm just gonna be loud, proud and wrong," it's like... no. That's not gonna work.Janice: Yeah, exactly. So I think that sometimes we feel like--you know, I don't ever feel like "Am I selling out?" But sometimes, you know, I'll get comments like that, where people are like, "Why are you focused on what people of color should do?" You know, I did an interview and I wrote an article about some mistakes that women of color make in tech, and somebody wrote me and said, "Why would the onus fall on the women of color in tech and not on the company?" And I said, "I've written many articles on what companies can do to be more inclusive, but I think it's also important to best position yourself to be successful." I've made mistakes in my career, and I've done things where I could have--you know, even as far as, like, branding myself. I've had a LinkedIn for years, and within the last two and a half years I've started to really get into LinkedIn, but I could've really been more active and gotten more opportunities from it. And there's been times when at work I've been antisocial and I didn't want to hang out with anyone that wasn't like me, and I think that that is problematic when you're trying to advance in your organization. Sometimes you have to go to those events, you know, mingle a little bit, smile and do whatever. And Minda Harts talked about this in her book "The Memo," about, like, the importance of sort of fraternizing with your colleagues and how that can help you when you're trying to advance. So I think that even as a woman of color in the workplace, I've made mistakes, so I think that's important to recognize and not just be like, "It's all the company's fault."Zach: No, you're absolutely right. And it's interesting, we've gotten the same type of feedback, right? But it's like--my whole thought is look, we're all grown. There's a certain level of agency that we have as professionals in our career, and yes, we're gonna talk about the systemic structural challenges. I think we would be doing--like, it's intellectually dishonest and insulting to not pair that--like, it's not either or, it's both and. And not equally on either side, right? Like, there are larger responsibilities that these organizations have to create inclusive and equitable and diverse spaces, and--and--and there's also responsibilities and just things that we can be aware of as underrepresented people in how to navigate these spaces, right? And it's not about respectability politics. It's not about anything that's asking you to sacrifice your dignity or your self-worth. It's about just you being knowledgeable, because there are things that people in the majority understand and they know in navigating work that we just literally don't know, and so it's about--that type of knowledge is incredible, and I know the article you're referencing that you wrote. But again, I think they go hand-in-hand. Look, this has been an incredible conversation, Janice. Before we let you go, any parting words or shout-outs?Janice: Well, I just hope that anyone listening to this can just look at what each of us can do in our lives to really deconstruct oppressive systems. So even if that's something as, like, retweeting or reposting something that--like, the stories of someone from a marginalized group. I think that's still moving the needle and amplifying their voice. So I try to do that as much as I can and just highlight people that deserve the shine and may not get the shine, because even in the D&I space there's a quote-unquote hierarchy, and I think certain people--you and I have discussed this--get a lot of shine while there's other people doing a lot of the ground work who aren't recognized as much. Not that you should do things for recognition, but I think that amplifying other people's voices is important. So yeah, that's pretty much it. Anyone who wants to discuss things more with me can just find me on Instagram. I'm @janicejnice, or add me on LinkedIn. I'm Janice Gassam on LinkedIn. We can chat more.Zach: Oh, my goodness. Well, first of all, you know we're gonna have all of your links as well as your Forbes profile so that people can check out all of your super dope articles, so we got you on that. Y'all, this has been Living Corporate, okay? So good conversation as always. We have the best guests. That's right, I'ma say it. We have the best guests. And, you know, we typically do a thing--we typically drop air horns, and if I remember we drop 'em at the top, but, you know, I forgot this time 'cause I got too excited 'cause we were just having this super dope conversation, so I'ma drop 'em right here--[air horns sfx]--just thank you very much. This has been a super cool conversation.Janice: Thank you so much, Zach. It's been a pleasure.Zach: No doubt. Listen, y'all. Living Corporate. Google us, right? You get on Google or--what's another, Yahoo? I don't know. I really just be on Google. This is not even an ad. [both laugh] But you get on Google or whatever your little search thing is and you type in Living Corporate, and you'll see us, man. We're out here. We're on Twitter @LivingCorp_Pod, Instagram @LivingCorporate, and we have all the domains, right? So www.living-corporate.com, please say the dash. Livingcorporate.co, livingcorporate.net, livingcorporate.tv, livingcorporate.org, livingcorporate.us. We've got all the livingcorporates, Janice, except for livingcorporate--like, all the way with no dash--dot com, 'cause Australia has that domain, but we got the rest of 'em.Janice: Oh!Zach: I know, right? They own this corporate housing thing, but if you go on the SEO, like, we hopping over them though. If you Google Living Corporate, like, we're hopping over them now, so we--I'm just saying, the brand is getting stronger. Let's see here. I think that's it, y'all. You've been listening to Zach, and I've been having a dope conversation with Dr. Janice Gassam, speaker, educator, mover, shaker, name taker, edge snatcher, writer. What else, Janice?Janice: System deconstructor.Zach: Yes! System deconstructor. Disruptor. Come on, bars. Let's go. All right, all right.Janice: An intentional inclusionist. [laughs]Zach: Ooh! Wait a second, intentional inclusionist? [Flex bomb sfx] Okay, okay, okay. 'Til next time, y'all. Peace.

Zach chats with Michelle Kim, co-founder and CEO of Awaken, in this episode centered around effectively creating inclusive leadership cultures. Michelle shares her journey into social justice work with us, including what led to the creation of Awaken, and she explains why she and her organization prioritize the needs of the most marginalized people in the room.Connect with Michelle - she's on Twitter, Instagram, and LinkedIn!Check out Awaken's website and social media pages! Twitter, IG, FB, LinkedInYou can read Awaken's Medium blog by clicking here.Want to learn more about Build Tech We Trust? Here's their website and Twitter!Click here to read the Salon piece mentioned in the show.Visit our website!TRANSCRIPTZach: What's up, everybody? It's Zach. Yes, again, it's me. Your boy, your host, your friend, your co-worker--maybe your co-worker, I don't know. If you work with me you know that I have this podcast, and, I mean, hopefully if you're checking it out, you know, hopefully you're having a good time. Shout-out to you. I'm not gonna say your name, but you know I'm talking to you. What's up? Look, you know what we do. We serve to amplify the voices of black and brown people at work, and we do that by talking to black and brown people in a variety of spaces, right? So these could be executives, public servants, activists, creatives, entrepreneurs, anybody, and we try to have these conversations in approachable and authentic ways, centering black and brown and otherwise underrepresented experiences and perspectives at work, and today we have with us a very special guest, Michelle Kim. Michelle is the founder and CEO of Awaken, a firm that empowers leaders and teams to lead inclusively and authentically through modern interactive and action-oriented workshops. Prior to Awaken, she had a successful consulting career working with C-suite and VP-level executives at high-performing companies around the world, helping them set ambitious business goals and align their teams to achieve them. While working in management consulting and technology start-ups, she experienced and validated first-hand the urgent need for modern, up-to-date education that empowers leaders to be more empathetic, agile, and culturally aware. Come on, now. Culturally aware. Pay attention. Michelle's experience in organizational change management, strategic goal setting and social justice activism set the groundwork for Awaken's multi-disciplinary and action-oriented learning programs. As an immigrant queer woman of color, Michelle has been a life-long social justice activist and community organizer. Michelle, what's going on? Welcome to the show.Michelle: Hey, thank you for having me. I'm so honored.[yay sfx]Zach: No doubt. It's a pleasure. It's a pleasure. Michelle: Those are the sound effects that you told me about. [laughing]Zach: Yes, yes. So for those who are newer to the show, I have a soundboard. I have all types of sounds on here, you know what I'm saying? You know, we add a few things from time to time, and, you know, just enjoy yourself. If you're new to this space, sit back, grab something to drink--it doesn't have to be alcoholic, you know? I respect your choices, your boundaries. But enjoy the soundscapes that are gonna be coming to you in this episode and many more to come.Michelle: I love the production.Zach: You know what? We gotta add a little bit of razzmatazz, just from time to time. So let's do this. You know, I gave a little bit of an intro, but for those of us who don't know you, would you mind telling us a little bit about yourself?Michelle: Sure. Hi, everyone. Thanks for having me. Thanks, Zach, for the intro. I think you covered a lot in my intro, but I think something that some people might be familiar with is actually my writing. I am an [?] writer. That's how I communicate my thoughts and perspectives to the world, in addition to facilitating workshops and doing speaking like this one or on stages all over the country. My passion is in really closing the gap between how we talk about social justice in our society today and how, you know, quote-unquote diversity and inclusion gets done, and quickly. So I think that there's a lot of work that we can do to help bridge the gap in understanding and awareness of how we communicate with each other. And also a fun fact about me is I'm a Virgo.Zach: Shout-out to Virgos. Whoa, whoa, whoa. Wait a minute. You said you're a Virgo?Michelle: I'm a Virgo.Zach: Man, shout-out to the Virgos one time. I'm also a Virgo. [air horns sfx] You know what I'm saying? They don't know about us like that. But please, tell us about your Virgoness.Michelle: You know, a lot of my friends who know me closely know my tendencies to be highly critical, but I also think that's what--I think being critical gets a bad rep, but I actually think that being critical is what makes me decent at my job. I also think that I have perfectionist tendencies, which I don't think is healthy, so I'm working on that. I like being organized. I am a huge fan of to-do lists. And I love--my love language is acts of service, so I think that also aligns with me being a Virgo. So I tend to, you know, go overboard when it comes to supporting other people, sometimes to a fault, 'cause I need to prioritize self-care and boundaries and all of that, but I'm not. I'm not perfect at that stuff.Zach: I just feel so--I feel so seen in you talking about yourself.Michelle: [laughing] Good. I'm glad, I'm glad. Virgos unite.Zach: They do. And honestly, like, you know, here we are, two people who over-extend for others sitting down, having a conversation that really helps to amplify one another. Isn't that something? [look at us sfx] Not me, you know what I'm saying?Michelle: That's right.Zach: [laughs] You were about to say something.Michelle: I said "Do you know who else is a Virgo?"Zach: Beyonce.Michelle: Beyonce's a Virgo. So whenever I feel like I need to be [?] about being a Virgo, I look to Beyonce for inspiration.[ow sfx]Zach: I'm right there with you. I mean, if she can do it, certainly I can do it. And, you know, my dad's a Virgo, so shout-out to my dad. He was born on the 6th, I was born on the 4th, and, you know, we're a lot alike. Okay, so yeah. Let's talk a little bit about your inspiration for social justice, and I really want to--'cause social justice is such a broad term. It's often even, like, used as a pejorative these days. So, like, when you say social justice in, like, your history, what does that look like for you?Michelle: That's a great question. My journey into social justice work really began with the lens of being a queer person. You know, I think my journey really started with my coming out. So I came out as queer and bisexual when I was 16. So I was in high school, and I was really confused. I didn't know about, you know, any social justice issues beyond--I think what people were talking about then were women's rights, and, you know, now I understand that to be white women's rights, but we'll get into that more. But when I came out as queer I didn't have a lot of resources, so I was really actively searching for community and support to make sense of who I was [and what I could do about my identity.] I was really fortunate to have found a great support group within my high school that was kind of an underground support group, and through that I found out about this program happening out of UC Santa Barbara where they were doing youth activism summer camp kind of stuff for LGBTQ young people. So that was my entryway into social justice work, and that's where I learned how to organize, how to, you know, stage protests and knowing my rights as a student activist, and that's where I learned about social justice activism and writers who wrote about social justice, like Audre Lorde. So that was my entryway into understanding social justice, is through the frame of my being queer and learning from queer trans activists, also young people, and that's also where I learned about the intersections of being queer and also being a person of color and all of the nuances of the different identities and the intersections of different types of marginalization and oppression and how often times they all come from the same root and source of, you know, patriarchy or white supremacy. So, you know, I'm throwing a lot of [?] here, but really at the end of it, for me social justice is about, you know, understanding that we're all in this struggle together, and in order for us to achieve equity and equality and justice that we need to have solidarity in this frame of social justice.Zach: And so I'm really curious, right? Let me talk to you a little bit about my perspective, it being singular and limited, right? So I don't believe this is the way it is. This has been, like, my perception as I look--a cishet black man, Christian black man, looking across this, like, D&I space, right? Like, I'm seeing, like, different camps and groups, right? So I see this group that is largely white and who--like, they're invited to a lot of the fancy things, but they're not necessarily credentialed other than being in a certain social strata, but they're not really credentialed in any type of lived experience, nor are they credentialed in any specific level of education, but they're credentialed in, like, certain experiences from, like, again, just being in certain spaces, right, that are afforded to them because of their class and race. I then see another group of people that are very much so, like, activists. Like, they're on the street. If they're using social media, it's to mobilize something tangible. It's to affect a change in some type of grassroots community level. And then I see, like, another group that is kind of--like, they're in the corporate space and they're doing a few things, but they're not necessarily really, like, enacting anything beyond whatever the company needs them to do to kind of mitigate litigious risk, but I think--I'm kind of seeing, like, tensions against each of these groups. I'm curious about, like, your perspective, considering your social activist background and the work you do today. Do you see similar camps in the space, and, like, if not, what are you seeing? Do you think I'm oversimplifying kind of, like, the various camps and groups, or, like, what's your perspective on that?Michelle: I don't think you're oversimplifying per se, 'cause I do see what you're saying. I hear you in terms of there being different--because identities [are?] also a different approach to doing diversity and inclusion work inside the workplace. I think--a couple things that I want to clarify in terms of my beliefs is that I don't think anyone can truly call themselves a D&I expert. I certainly don't call myself a D&I expert, because I believe fundamentally diversity and inclusion is about lived experiences, so it's all about how we make sense of our lived experiences in relation to the systems that we inhabit, so I think everybody's an expert in their own lived experience, and I can't ever claim that I'm an expert in your life, right? So I think that's one belief that I have, that we all are experts in our owned lived experiences. And then another belief that I have is that, you know, social justice activism isn't just about being out in the street and marching and protesting. You know, there's a lot of activism happening inside of workplaces today as well through corporate activism, but also just daily acts of survival for a lot of folks, especially black and brown people, underrepresented people of color and trans and queer people inside workplaces. I think what they're doing, just by mere survival and speaking up when they can, is an act of activism. I think there is a greater sense of responsibility that I'd love for D&I professionals to have, whether they're inside or outside of the workplaces, in really making sense of how change happens and pushing the boundaries to serve the most marginalized people in the room. I think that's where my criticality comes in, when you start to talk about mostly white--I think I've seen a lot of white women take up the role of head of D&I. That's where I start to question whether, you know, are they understanding the positionality of being a white person, doing this work inside workplaces, holding a position of power? And, you know, I start to question sort of how change is being [assisted?] inside companies while prioritizing the needs of the most marginalized people. So I do think that people without the social justice frame, as in--you know, I think the root of my education and the foundation of my social justice education that I've gotten from, you know, activists who were organizers at the community level, what they've taught me is that in order for us to enact change, we need community, we need solidarity, and we need to approach everything through the lens of centering the most marginalized people and their needs, 'cause then everybody in-between and all of us will rise together. So that is sort of my approach when it comes to education or policies, whatever organizational design we're talking about. If we can center the most marginalized people, then everybody else will benefit. So that's the social justice framing that I use to approach all of my work, but I think I see some D&I people in the corporate space doing D&I work as if this is a new discipline that's not tied to social justice at all, right? That this is--in a vacuum, this is just about recruiting the most, you know, diverse set of candidates, that it's about retaining those people once they get there, but it's sort of in a vacuum without the understanding of systemic issues and history that has fueled D&I to exist in the first place. I think that's my biggest sort of criticism about how D&I gets done in the corporate space today.Zach: And I get that, right? It resonates with me, which is why I was so excited, because I really enjoyed--like, I've read some of your written work, and of course I follow you on social media. I love what Awaken is doing, right? And really, based on what you're sharing, I'm curious, how does that translate into the work that Awaken does? Because everything you're saying, I'm hearing it, right? But I guess I'm trying to understand--how does that effectively translate in majority-white spaces in the work that--and I'm making an assumption that the spaces that you engage are largely white. If they're not correct me, but from what I'm looking at it seems like the spaces are largely white, and it seems to be that when I talk to other D&I professionals, the subtext of a lot of the work, and even some of the, like, backhanded critique that I've received--because I'm often times received as "Well, you're passionate, but you're not really credentialed, right?" Like, "You're a person of color and you have a certain lived experience, but, you know, you don't have the same foundation that I may have as a quote-unquote D&I expert, so your point of view only goes so far," or it's only limited to the black experience. There seems to be, like, a subtext of "Let's not make people too uncomfortable," but the work that you're talking about in centering underrepresented or the most marginalized, that--I feel as if the argument could be made that you're automatically making other people uncomfortable. So again, just what does all of that look like as it translates into your work with Awaken?Michelle: Yeah, that's a great question. And I'm also so curious about these credentials, right? [both laughing] 'Cause I see these credential programs or certification programs. Like, what are you certifying people for? I'm so curious. I think there are absolutely some skills that we can learn, whether that's facilitation or curriculum development or policy design, that we can get better at, but in terms of understanding other people's lived experiences and the identities that folks hold and the complexities that come with that, I don't know if we can truly ever be credentialed enough to be, you know, discounting other people's experiences and opinions. So that's my perspective on it. And in terms of how our approach translates into our work, you know, I think we can talk about sort of the founding story, why we were created in the first place. So, you know, after having done organizing work when I was in high school and college, I decided to pursue a career in, you know, the for-profit space because I needed to make money, let's be real, and I was told actually by my activist mentors, who have gone onto pursuing social justice careers as career organizers and non-profit folks, that they were also experiencing very sort of similar harm, because even non-profits are predominantly led by white people, right? So I think the issues that we think are non-existent in progressive--quote-unquote "more progressive" spaces, they continue to exist, while folks are not making enough money to make ends meet. So--[straight up sfx]Michelle: [laughs] I love the sound effects. Knowing that and knowing my situation as a--you know, I grew up low-income, and I needed money to support my family. The advice I got from my mentors was "Hey, you can create change in certain spaces." They warned me about the toxic culture, but I went in sort of ignorant about what I was getting myself into. So I also really am grateful for my journey, having started my career in management consulting and in tech. I think I have experienced a lot of different things that I wasn't ready for but I'm grateful for nonetheless. But when I entered in those spaces, I was exposed to and I searched for D&I spaces, right? Because I thought that that was what I knew to be social justice work. So when I joined an employee resource group, I was, you know, disappointed at the level of conversations that were being had around what it means to be inclusive, what it means to be a diverse place, and I was surprised and disappointed and disillusioned by what companies were talking about as D&I was quite surface-level and marketing-oriented rather than real actionable behavioral change or cultural change that were being modeled by leaders of the company. So, you know, I was going through different workshops and trainings and just kept feeling like I was not seeing the level of conversations that actually needed to take place in these spaces, and it felt really safe. It felt safe. It felt white-washed. It felt diluted. As, you know, somebody who was just sitting in the room and constantly challenging the facilitator, I felt like I was doing all of the work. [Zach laughs] And after the [?] is over, you know, unfortunately the burden of re-educating other people who went through the workshop who now thinks that they are quote-unquote "woke" or who say that they checked the box, right? "Okay, we went through this unconscious bias training, so now we're good. Now I'm back to being a progressive person who cares about this issue." [Zach laughs] You know, [it was?] a challenge to really think differently, but the burden of their action, their unchanging behavior, their unawareness, and they're now feeling like they know what they're talking about, falls on the most marginalized people in the room, and I think that was a frustration that kept coming up for me as I was going through different types of trainings, whether that was done by external vendors or internal people, that people weren't pushing people enough, and I genuinely felt the need for a compassionate space for uncomfortable conversations, and that's our mission statement, to create a compassionate space for uncomfortable conversations to developing inclusive leaders and teams, and the way that we do that is by centering the needs of the most marginalized people, meaning we don't pat on ourselves on the back when a workshop goes well from the perspective of a bunch of white men saying that that workshop was great, you know? That may be true, but if, you know, the one black person in the room says that that workshop wasn't good while a bunch of white people say that the workshop was great, we don't pat ourselves on the back for that, right? But if we can support the most marginalized people in the room, you know, in tech and also in many other spaces as predominantly black and brown folks, trans, queer, people of color, if they give us the stamp of approval, if they feel like they were seen and heard and lifted and that they didn't have to do all the work, that's success for us, right? So by designing our curriculum to speak truth to them and to, you know, have that frame of "Can we lessen the burden on people who are the most marginalized in these spaces by saying the things that they can't say because there are too many risks and repercussions that they fear?" That's our job, and I don't think enough D&I practitioners out there are taking that approach, because, you know, if they're internal, their job is at risk. I get that. So I think as a third-party, we coming in--we have a different level of risk that we get to take because we don't have that kind of repercussion that we need to worry about, besides not being able to come back to that place again.Zach: Right. And, I mean, at that point that, you know, they don't let you back, I mean, you already got the bag anyway, so... [cha-ching sfx] You know? Michelle: [laughs] Well, and usually we can come back, because we don't often take on one-off workshops. I think that approach is pretty harmful, and, you know, companies come to us and say, "Hey, we just want to do a one-day, like, [?]." We tend to say no to those engagements because we really believe in delivering impact and working with people who are genuinely interested in real change. So, you know, I think the mistake people make is thinking that meeting people where they're at needs to be done by diluting the message. I don't think that's true. You can meet people where they're at with compassion and criticality. So you don't have to coddle people, but I think you can be compacted and make your content accessible for folks that they understand and they can move along the journey while feeling and embracing some tension and discomfort that comes with challenging their beliefs.Zach: So it's funny, because you see, like, even in, like, our current political tone and tambor today from, like, mainstream media, it's still around, like, the idea of respectability and quote-unquote kindness, kind of pushing against this idea of, like, call-out culture or just, like, keeping it real, like, just saying how things are, and it's interesting, and I hear what you're saying about, like, coddling versus accessibility. Do you have an example of what it looks like to effectively call something for what it is while at the same time making it accessible for folks to actually grasp and understand. Like, I don't think there's enough work that you could do to cater to or mitigate against fragility, but I would love to hear, like, kind of what Awaken does and, like, what that looks like for you.Michelle: Mm-hmm. Hm, let me think of an example. I think that's a great question, and I'd love to be able to contextualize it just a little though with an example. I think--I don't know why this example keeps coming up in my head. I think it's because we're designing a curriculum right now around inclusive interviewing practices, and one of the common questions that comes up is this idea of not lowering the bar and hiring in this sort of notion of meritocracy, and I think, you know, one way to approach that is really sort of making the person who said that feel like they don't know what they're talking about and, you know, calling them racist and all of that... I think is one way. [both laugh] I think another way could be really helping unpack why meritocracy doesn't currently exist, even though that is an ideal that we can strive for together, and how people who are currently in companies today may not have been hired purely based on merit. Zach: And how do you prove that though?Michelle: How do you prove that?Zach: Yeah.Michelle: I think there's a lot of data that actually backs up the claim around how meritocracy doesn't exist. I mean, what we often talk about is that, you know, meritocracy is a concept that was created as a vision that we can all work toward, but we falsely believe that right now there is sort of meritocracy in a sense, but there's lots of data that shows that actually there's a lot of biases in the hiring process, whether it's from the referral stage or, you know, the interview stage or the deliberation stage. I think there's a lot of data that actually shows discrepancies in the ways that we make decisions, and I think, you know, calling that out specifically I think is really helpful. I think the harmful alternative of sort of diluting that fact of, you know, not having meritocracy is that I have sometimes heard, you know, folks explain that to people in a way that actually equates hiring people of color or women as lowering the bar and that being sort of the, you know, unfortunate short-term solution. Like, yeah, but we need to hire more people of color and women, so, you know, we want to make sure that we are getting that quota filled. So I think there's, like, a lot of weird ways of people explaining difficult concepts to make people feel comfortable, because the discomfort in this conversation is the fact that you may not have been hired based on your merit, right? I think that's the tension, is that if we debunk meritocracy, people who have these jobs in higher-paying positions, they are feeling attacked because they feel like they warrant--they didn't get to where they are purely based on merit, and recognizing that they've had privileges that weren't afforded to another demographic groups, I think that in and of itself is the discomfort, and I think a lot of folks have a hard time calling that out, because we're then directly sort of highlighting the fact this may be an awful position that they're in. And I think talking about privilege in general is something that's really difficult for people. It's not an easy topic for any of us to really grapple with, but I think if we can't have those tougher conversations where we are directly highlighting and shining light on the fact that, you know, there are--"Yes, we worked hard, and there are struggles that we didn't have to go through to get to where they are." I think if that conversation doesn't happen, it would be a huge miss.Zach: You know, Michelle, when you and I first spoke, you know--we do our thing, we try to get to know each other first, and then we do the episode. A little bit of background behind the scenes for y'all, but anyway, when you and I first spoke we talked about people of color and that term, right? And we had conversations about Living Corporate and how, you know, we don't really use the term "people of color," we say black and brown. And then you and I had a conversation about how you don't really consider, or you don't count, Asian-American or, like, that space, East Asian, in the "people of color" category. Can you talk to me a little bit more about that?Michelle: Yeah. I think that's a great question. So I think, just to clarify, I do count Asians as a part of the people of color community, but I think there's context that we need to put into place whenever we're using the term. So I think the term people of color is a useful term when we're talking specifically about non-white people in the context of talking about white supremacy and how that impacts all people who are not white who experience racism and other forms of oppression because of their race. Where I don't feel comfortable using the term people of color is when we're discussing specific issues that impact black and brown communities. For example, when we're talking about police brutality or the murders of black trans women, I think it's really important for us to be specific about who we're talking about, because as an East Asian person, I don't have the same type of fear or risk when I'm around police. I think that is really important for us to specify, and I think that understanding around how there are very specific forms of racism, like anti-black racism. I think that clarity is so needed in having this conversation in a more effective way, and also for, you know, Asian-American folks to be able to show up in solidarity with folks who are experiencing very specific forms of marginalization. Zach: I just... you know, one sound we don't have on the soundboard is, like, finger snaps. [snapping fingers] But I'ma put these in there. Yeah, I love it. And it's interesting because, you know, we're moving at the speed of the Internet when it comes to a lot of this stuff, right? And certain things become trendy or become--I don't know. They kind of just catch fire, and I think the term people of color, it has a place, and I've seen it be used interchangably when people are just talking about black folk, right? It's like, "Why are we using that term right now when--" If we're really talking about something targeted for black Americans, if we're talking about something that's targeted for Latinx trans Americans--these groups, as niche or as just unique or small as they may seem to you, these represent actual human beings. So I think it's great that we're using them, but sometimes for me--it sometimes almost gets used as, like, a catch-all, and you end up erasing a lot of identities and experiences and points of view.Michelle: Totally, and I think if we can't be specific about the actual issue, then how can we solution around it, right? If we can't name what the actual issue is? It's not police brutality against all people of color, right? It's [?] against black and brown people specifically, you know? People who are seen as a quote-unquote "threat" to cops. I think it's really important for us to get specific around that so that we can solution around it, because it wouldn't make sense for us to do--you know, to solve for all people of color experiencing police brutality because that's not true. I think, you know, when we talk about black maternal [debts?], that's not happening to Asian-Americans that it's happening to black folks who are giving birth. So, you know, I think specificity is important for solutioning the right outcomes, and also, like you said, it doesn't erase people's experiences. I think tech is starting to incorporate more of the term around underrepresented POC, because, you know, Asian-Americans are overrepresented in many tech companies, but, you know, Asian-American also, similar to POC, is a very broad terminology, so I'd love to be able to see some dis-aggregated terms that we can use to also talk about underrepresented Asian-Americans. But yeah, I think specific language is always helpful in most cases, and I think there's also purpose to the term people of color when we can really mobilize and build a coalition across all people of color.Zach: I think it's just so interesting. I do think a function of white supremacy is, like, keeping things as surface as possible so that--because the more surface you can be, like, to your point, the less specific and targeted you can be in your solutioning, and if you're not targeting your solutioning, then you're not really gonna be able to affect true change. 'Cause, you know, and the last thing about this in terms of, like, just keeping things general and grouping people all together is, like--I know that in Europe there's a term that's called... it's black--it's like people of color to the max, right? So it's called "BAM," black, Asian, and Middle-Eastern. Like, what is that? Michelle, like, that's--that is nuts. You can't--huh? Like, when someone told me that--like, I just learned about this maybe, I don't know, like, a couple months ago. Like, a colleague told me, and I said, "How is that possible?" Like, those are thousands of identities and experiences and cultures and languages and histories. Like, how are you just going to just lump--so you're just gonna take all the non-white people and put 'em in one big cluster? Huh? Considering the history of, like, colonialism and, like--oh, my gosh. Like, that's nuts. You can't do that. And so, anyway... okay, okay, so from this conversation, what I'm hearing, I don't think that we always give, like, members of the majority enough credit in their ability to have an honest conversation when it's framed effectively, right? I think a lot of times it's kind of like, "Well, we don't want to bring that up because then that makes people uncomfortable," or "We don't want to bring that up because then they shut off," and it's like... eh. I mean, yes, people are fragile, but, like, come on. We've got to be able to have some type of--some level of authentic conversation around something. So that's--Michelle: Yeah. I wouldn't go as far as giving them credit. [both laughing] You know? I think there is a reason why--you know, why people are hesitant to have that conversation. I think it's because of the backlash. It's because of the fragility and it's because of [?] and also frankly the repercussions that people face. So I think while we sort of finesse the way that we deliver certain messages without losing the criticality but also having compassion and being accessible, what we also need to be doing is building the resiliency on the part of the dominant or the privileged group so that we can receive that information and check their fragility or check their defensiveness, and I think that education needs to be more prioritized than the other stuff.Zach: I agree, and thank you. Thank you for pushing back. [laughing] I do think there's a low level of fluency and stamina, right, when it comes to these conversations, and it's interesting because I just read an article, and it was published on Salon, and it was called "Diversity is for white people: the big lie behind a well-intended word." Have you read that yet?Michelle: I have not.Zach: Yo, I'ma send this to you. But it's just interesting because it's really this conversation in a really tactful rant form just around, like, how D&I is often phrased today, and it's, like, phrased with, like, white comfort in mind as opposed to the perspective and experiences of the marginalized in mind, and so I just find that very interesting. Okay, so look, you're the first East Asian-American person that we've had on the show, and so first of all, you know what I'm saying, shout-out to you. [air horns sfx] You know, shout-out to you for that and just being here, you know? [coin sfx] Michelle: Thank you for having me. I'm honored.Zach: Nah, I'm honored. I mean, I'm excited. I think there's this--like, despite civil rights history and all of the work especially done, like, within California, L.A., Oakland, in the '60s, and of course, like, during the era of the Black Panthers, there's this stereotype that Asian-Americans don't really care about social justice. Like, have you heard this before, and, like, why do you think that that is?Michelle: Yeah. Yes, I have heard that before, and I continue to hear it quite often. I think something that I hear when I meet people for the first time and I talk about what I do and we get to know each other a bit better, a weird sort of form of compliment or they think it's a compliment that they pay me is this fact that, you know, I'm one of the unique ones, right? Like, "Oh, wow. I've never met another Asian person who is like you," or "I'm so glad you're doing this work, because we need more Asian people doing this," and I have mixed emotions about that, because while I appreciate the acknowledgement of the work, I think that there's also this continuing erasure of the historical work that different Asian-American activists have done, whether that's the labor movement that was led by Filipino activists or folks marching [?] or even current activists working as prison abolistionists who are Asian-American racial justice organizer or disability justice organizers like [?], queer trans [?] activists. I think there's a lot of folks who are doing really radical work who continually get erased, so it leaves sort of a bitter taste in my mouth when I hear that because I think that with that simple sentiment we're erasing so much of history and current work that's being done. I also think that some of that comment is valid in that, you know, I do see a lot more work that can be done on the part of Asian-Americans specifically. You know, East Asians in tech is sort of the reputation that I hear about where people can be more active in doing D&I work or social justice work, and I think there's a real sort of lack of awareness or even the sense of solidarity amongst Asian-Americans in what their place is, like, what our place is in this conversation around social justice activism. So I think it's a complex topic. I do think that we can do more. I think all groups can do more, and I think there's a serious lack of education around Asian-American history and sort of--even the current facts around, you know, the struggles that Asian-Americans are going through, that if more Asians knew about that and if more Asian folks found commonality between our oppression and other marginalized communities' depression that we may be able to build a coalition to do more amazing work.Zach: One, thank you for--that's a really thoughtful answer. All of your answers have been very thoughtful. It's almost like you're very... awake. [haha sfx] What's really interesting, to your point around just, like, history, is as much as the Black Panthers--I really think that the way that we think about--and when I say we, I mean just, like, Americans, right? Like, the way that Americans categorize and think about the Black Panthers has to be, like, some of the most effective example of American government propaganda, right? Like, we think of Black Panthers as the equivalent of the KKK, like, the black equivalent, like they're these terrorists and that it's just full of these angry black people, and we don't think about the fact that Richard Aoki was--he was a founding member of the Black Panthers, right? Asian-American. And he's not, like, this ancient figure. Like, he passed away in 2009, but we don't really talk about that, and I'm really curious as to--'cause, like, the Black Panther Party, and, like--not the new Black Panther Party, but the initial, original Black Panther Party was not, like, hundreds of years ago, and so it's just so interesting how we are uneducated, right? We're uneducated just on civil rights history, and we're certainly--I don't remember in high school or in college hearing anything about Asian-American participation or engagement in the civil rights movement. That was not anything that I remember being taught, nor do I remember that being something that was, like, readily available for me to learn, you know?Michelle: Right. And I think that lack of education is within the Asian-American community itself, right? I think I feel like sometimes I know more about, you know, black history than my own sort of Asian-American history here in the U.S., and I'm an immigrant, so I think I grew up with a different set of history lessons. So there's a lot of catching up for me to do as well, and I think that the--I mean, even in the school system, I'm sure you've been talking to your guests around the lack of real education around what really happened in history too, right? Not just for Asian-Americans, but for, you know, black Americans and, you know, Latinx Americans. I think there's a lot of, you know, untrue history that's being taught to our youth, which is problem #1, and I also think there's a lot of internalized racism and oppression that exists in the Asian-American community, and there's a lot of complex topics that I don't know if we have time to get into, but things like the--Zach: Well, pick one. Let's go. I have time.Michelle: You know, the myth of Asians being closer to white people and the sort of model minority myth, and that's a very prevalent stereotype, and I think there's a lot of interrogating that we need to do when we talk about those things around, "Well, who were the initial group of Asian-Americans that were allowed to come to the country? What were the ramifications of that? What are some of the current statistics that we can talk about, even in the workplace, around Asian-Americans being the least likely group to advance to senior leadership positions even though they are overrepresented in industries like tech and, you know, [?] in an analyst position?" "How does that impact the continuing stereotypes and narratives around Asian-Americans?" Being good at math, and, you know, I think there's a lot of complex, intertwined stories that we tell about our people, Asian-Americans, and also we're combining an entire continent when talking about Asian-Americans as this monolith of a people when if we were to dis-aggregate that data, there's actually a ton of lessons to be learned around who's actually marginalized within the Asian-American community, right? I recently learned that 1 in 7--I think that's the stat--1 in 7 Asian-Americans are undocumented, and they're the fastest-growing population that's undocumented in the United States currently, but we don't hear about that, right? We don't hear about that narrative, and I think the way that white supremacy works is this sort of untrue and erasing of different stories that make the people of color the collective question and also not able to work alongside each other, and I think that's the--the most difficult thing that I see in the sort of solidarity that we need to be able to move the needle on this work is that there's so much of a lack of education on everyone's part, including myself, that we need to do a lot of work to be able to, you know, truly practice that solidarity with each other.Zach: Man. You know, and, like, Michelle, you've been just casually dropping just bombs, like, this whole conversation, right? So I just gotta give you at least one. [Flex bomb sfx] 'Cause it's been ridiculous. But one thing you said--and it brought something back to my memory. So I'm not gonna say the consulting firm. If y'all want to look on my LinkedIn, y'all can make a guess as to where this was. It's not the one that I'm at right now, but I'll never forget, Michelle, I was at a team dinner--this was some years ago--and we were talking about... so, you know, I'm at the table, and then there's senior leaders, and then there's, like, super senior leaders, and there's me, and I was, like, a junior-level person at this point in time, right? This was, like, five or six years ago. And so I'm a pretty junior person, and there's somebody in there talking about this one particular employee, and they said, "Oh, Insert Name Here is the perfect little Asian. He just does exactly what I tell him to do. He does his work and then he goes home." And I remember I was just eating my dinner--I literally stopped, I looked at the person who said it and was like, "Oh, my God. I can't believe you just said that." And she looked at me, and then you could tell that she, like, quickly averted her eyes and was kind of, like, "Oop--" You know, like, she got caught, but just that idea of this subservient just worker bee that just does whatever I tell them to do... that just stuck with me forever. I was like, "Oh, my gosh." Like, that's not--I'm still flabbergasted by that, as you can tell, and I told my coach. I said, "Hey, this is not okay," right? I said, "This is what happened." And they were like, "Oh, well, you shouldn't have heard that." I was like, "No, no, no. It's not about me shouldn't have hearing it. Like, they shouldn't have said that, but beyond them saying it, they shouldn't believe that." So yeah, I just wanted to share that. Like, I'll never forget me hearing that. And, like, they were talking about the person like they were a--you know, like a resource, and, you know, they call talent that in consulting, resources, but in a genuine, like, piece of property [way], right? And it makes you just question, like, "Well, damn, okay. You felt comfortable enough to say this at a team dinner." And it was a white woman, by the way. But, like, you felt comfortable enough saying this in, like, a mixed group at a team dinner. Like, God forbid, what are you saying about me, what are you saying about other people, what are you saying about this person in, like, more private settings, you know what I mean?Michelle: Right. Well, the scary thing though is that sometimes that kind of trope or narrative is almost seen as a compliment, as if we should be celebrating that. "Well, you know, why is it so bad for us to say Asians are good workers or Asians are good at following orders?" And what have you. I think sometimes that trope gets weaponized to divide the people of color community even further, which is--you know, I think we saw that divide also in the recent affirmative action case, right, where Asian-Americans--there were arguments on both sides around how Asians are being discriminated against for getting good grades and all of that kind of unfortunate, annoying [?], but that's a conversation for another time.Zach: No, you're absolutely right. And to be specific for our listeners who may not be abreast, recently that was the affirmative action case that went before Harvard, correct?Michelle: Correct.Zach: Yeah, and so it was interesting--so, like my perspective, as I was kind of, like, reading and understanding it was, like, some people were saying--so I'm on this app called Fishbowl... this is not an ad, but Fishbowl is, like, this anonymous posting app for consultants and other, like, different industry professionals, and people on there were talking about the case, and so basically the commentary was, "Yeah, you're excluding us and you're letting in these black and brown people who aren't smart enough to get in, but you're trying to fill in these racial quotas." And I was like, "Wow." I don't think that that's the point, and I think the data showed that the people who are the most advantaged by this current system of applications and acceptances were legacy students, right? It was people that--but again, like, to your point, then you'd see people arguing, then you'd see black and brown people arguing with Asian-Americans about, you know, "Well, we deserve to be here--" Again, I think that's--white supremacy is winning again when we start having those types of... when it starts devolving in that way, you know what I mean?Michelle: Right, exactly. And I think it also comes from the fact that a lot of people don't understand the point of affirmative action and why it got started in the first place. It's almost like people think that we're just trying to fill quotas or, you know, have diversity for the sake of diversity, but I think this is where the concept of D&I falls short 'cause we're not actually ever talking about justice and correcting past mistakes or historical oppression. So I think there's a lot of conversations that we need to have that we're not having right now around this concept of justice and sort of historical wrong-doings being corrected with some type of mechanism, and I think similar conversations, you know, are being had in tech and other industries where they're focused on quote-unquote "diversity recruiting" where folks are talking about that concept of, you know, lowering the bar for the sake of diversity and, like, all of that stuff I feel like are interconnected and they're just happening in different spheres, and I think for me it's always coming back to the lack of basic communication around history and social justice concepts and people not understanding how all of these struggles are connected. I think there's just a lot of room for improvement in how we're talking about these issues.Zach: You know, we gotta have you back to talk about the connection--like, to really talk about justice in diversity, equity and inclusion work, because, like, I have all these questions, but I want to respect your time. [both laugh] So let's do this. First of all, let's make sure we have you back. We definitely consider you a friend of the pod.Michelle: Thank you.Zach: Yeah, no, straight up. So thank you for being here with us today. Now, look, y'all--now, I don't know what else y'all want from me. I'm talking to the audience now. You know, look, we come at y'all, we bring y'all some amazing guests, you know, we're having these really dope conversations. I mean, [what more do you want from me? sfx] what more do you want? Like, I'm not even trying to martyr myself. I'm just saying, like, "What do you want?" And when I say me, I mean Living Corporate. Like, you see this guest. Michelle Kim is a beast. Like, thank you so much. This has been a great conversation. Now, look, before we get out of here though, Michelle, I have just a couple more questions. First of all, where can people learn more about Awaken?Michelle: You can learn more about Awaken at our website, www.visionawaken.com. You can also follow on Twitter @AwakenCo and our blog. Please check out our blog on Medium, www.medium.com/Awaken-blog. I'm all on Twitter, I'm on LinkedIn. You can follow me. I also have an Instagram. So all of the social media platforms there's gonna be me or Awaken, so please follow us and subscribe to our newsletter.Zach: All right, y'all. Now, look, she said all the stuff. Mm-mm, hold on, 'cause you're probably driving or you're doing something, you know? You're in your car or maybe you're typing something up on your phone, but what I really need y'all to do is I need you to stop... [record scratch sfx] and check out the links in the show notes, okay? Make sure y'all hit up all those things. I want y'all clicking on them links like [blatblatblatblat sfx]. You know, check them out, okay? We'll make sure we have everything right there for you. Now, Michelle, any shout-outs or parting words before you get out of here?Michelle: Well, I think we're living in a really interesting time right now. There's a lot going on in so many different communities and our society, so my shout-out is to everyone who is doing their best to survive and to thrive to take care of themselves, to stay vigiliant, to educate themselves, and to be in community with people that care about you. I think that's so important in this climate. One last shout-out I want to give is to this new initiative that I'm a part of called Build Tech We Trust. It's a coalition of different CEOs and tech leaders who have come together to say enough is enough around white supremacy spreading online on social media platforms and other tech platforms. It was founded by Y-Vonne Hutchinson and Karla Monterroso of Code2040, and check out our work. We're doing some really important work to build coalition around this issue of radicalization happening on tech platforms. So Build Tech We Trust, and I can send you the URL so you can link it.Zach: Please do. Y'all, this has been--first of all, Michelle, again, thank you. Great conversation. We look forward to having you back, because we will be having you back. If you would like to come back--it's not a directive, you have agency. Michelle: [laughing] Of course. I'd love to. I'd be honored.Zach: Okay, super cool. Listen, y'all. This has been the Living Corporate podcast. You know, make sure you check us on Twitter @LivingCorp_Pod, Instagram @LivingCorporate, and then--now, the websites. Now, look, y'all hear me rattle off all these websites every time - livingcorporate.co, livingcorporate.org, livingcorporate.tv, livingcorporate.net, right? Livingcorporate.us I think we even have. We have every livingcorporate, Michelle, except livingcorporate.com, but we do have living-corporate--please say the dash--dot com. Now, if you have any questions or any feedback for the show, just hit us up. We're at livingcorporatepodcast@gmail.com. Hit us up on DM. All of our DMs are wide open for your convenience. That's right. We take on the emotional labor of keeping our DMs open so that you can reach out to us, okay? So you hit us up and you let us know if you need anything. If there's anything else, just Google us, right? Type in Living Corporate on your browser. We're gonna pop up. We're on all the different streaming mediums. Make sure to tell your momma about Living Corporate, your cousin, or your weird uncle, or your racist uncle at Thanksgiving. So you make sure you--come on, shoot the link over. We got all kinds of stuff on there, so we out here, okay? What else? I think that's it. Shout-out to Aaron [thank you], shout-out to all the listeners, and God bless y'all. Or, you know what I'm saying, bless y'all, 'cause I'm not trying to offend anybody, but bless y'all, okay? And what else? I think that's it. This has been Zach. You've been listening to Michelle Kim, founder, educator, activist, public speaker, and of course CEO of Awaken. Catch y'all next time. Peace.

Season 3 officially kicks off with a special premiere episode! Our incredible hosts Zach and Ade spend some time catching up and talking about what they did over the holidays, and they also chat about a few things to get excited for in the upcoming season. More features, more profiles, more highlights - there's a lot to look forward to in the future! This show's a two-in-one, so be sure to listen to the whole episode. Ade graciously shares some very impactful content that she recorded themed around her career journey and eventual job offer, so you don't want to miss it.Click here to read the piece Zach mentioned titled "Democracy Grief is Real."TRANSCRIPTZach: Yearrrrrp. What's going on, everybody? It's Season--oh, my gosh. 1, 2... Season 3.A ghost: Sure is.Zach: More fire for your head top, and welcome back. Is that a ghost? Is that--A ghost: [whispering] "From the past, from the past, from the past..."Zach: From the past? Oh, my gosh. Y'all, welcome back Ade.[kids applause, then our hosts imitate air horns]Zach: Man, wow. Listen, it is 2020. It's 2020. Isn't that nuts? It's 2020. You know, I definitely want to say though, you know, I've missed you. Y'all know. Y'all have probably noticed that Ade has not been in the podcast regularly, hasn't been around, you know. Breaking my heart quite frankly, you know what I'm saying? I cried. You know? I was sad.Ade: [laughing] Like... okay. All right, sir. Zach: I'm just thankful. I'm happy that you're here, you know? Season 3 is gonna be crazy, right? We have a lot of stuff going on. We have, you know, More profiles and highlights from, you know, different companies. You know, we've had Accenture on, we've had the Coalition of Black Excellence on. We got some other conversations and things that we're cooking up, but nothing to share just yet, you know? We are working on a book. That's right, that's right. More to come on that later, but I'm just kind of throwing some teasers out there. We've got some other media that we're gonna be experimenting with this year. I'm really excited about that. And then, you know, we've got--what else, man? We've got, you know, Ade's--I'm not gonna step on Ade. So she has some content that we're gonna get into that she recorded as she gets into the next stage of her professional career and journey, but I'ma give her space to talk about that in a second. Before we go there though, let's talk about the holiday season. What did you do?Ade: Oh, God. What did I do? I--uh, I slept.Zach: Turn up.Ade: I ate.Zach: Yeah.Ade: And I twisted my ankle.Zach: How?Ade: I don't even want to get into it. [both laugh]Zach: Oh, no. [laughing] Okay. Um...Ade: The point remains. I survived. I survived the holiday season. I spent some time with my loved ones. I don't know if I've mentioned my nephews on here before, but I have two nephews, one who loves me and one [who] hates me. But, you know, thanks be to God. The one who hates me now loves me and he wants to spend time with me on a regular basis now. Zach: Children are a fickle beast, man.Ade: They are so terrible. They are unruly, and they are tyrants. [both laughing] But we love them anyway.Zach: Man, we do. I have a nephew. He is adorable. Goodness, gracious. He's adorable, but it's like--and I just realized I guess I should go ahead and drop the news. Sheesh, I'm talking about kids. Well, first of all, let me say this first. So I have a nephew. He is adorable. But he's a boy, right? And if I just--he's just gonna get away with everything if I babysit him 'cause he's just too cute, but he's mischievious. Like, he's a cute little mischievious kid, but I'm just not--and I'm just not tough enough, 'cause he's too cute. He's too cute, you know? Now, if y'all have ugly kids, like, bring 'em over. I'll be a great disciplinarian. But if your kid's cute--Ade: What?![record scratch sfx]Zach: [laughing] Nah, ain't no such thing as ugly kids. Children are a blessing, and it's awesome, and actually it's with that in mind, you know, I actually have some news, you know what I'm saying, I'd like to share. You know, if anybody follows me on Instagram--which y'all don't, 'cause my follower count is not that booming like that and I haven't posted on Living Corporate, but my wife and I are expecting our first child.Ade: Ayeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee.Zach: A little girl. Very excited, you know what I'm saying? [ow sfx]Ade: You know, I just wanted to say that Ade makes a really great first name for baby girls. I'm just saying. Putting it out there.Zach: [inhales, then plays a laughing sound effect]Ade: Whoa! [both laughing] Whoa, what's with the personal attacks? Like...Zach: Oh, my gosh. Shout-out to my wife, my spouse, my queen, my rib, you know what I'm saying, Candis. Doing all the hard work, you know? I--you know, listen... I put in the work, you know what I mean, but I'm not really carrying the load, you know what I'm saying? So air horns for her. [air horns sfx] You know what I'm saying? Just really appreciate her. You said you ate, but you talked about some food--so what did you eat? Like, what was your favorite thing?Ade: God, that's a good question. I absolutely could go back in, like, my memory bank and take a look at these photos that I took of my [?] plates.Zach: All right. Pull those up, 'cause I know for me--like, and shout-out to my grandmother-in-law. She made all types of vittles. They were delicious. [Ade laughs, making Zach laugh] And shout-out to my wife--Ade: Did you just say vittles?Zach: I did say vittles. I'm trying to bring vittles back in 2020. Ade: Why are you so old?Zach: Think about the last time--like, we have not, our parents have not, perhaps our grandparents are the last generation that use the word vittles casually.Ade: Right, and I think that's for good reason and we should leave that term there.Zach: It's SO old. Vittles, dawg? It's so, so, so, SO old. Ade: Kind of like you. We know.Zach: Kind of like me, that's right. I'm a whole 30 out here.Ade: That's wild.Zach: I know, right? 'Cause you just turned, like, 19.Ade: ...Um, first of all, 16, thank you very much.Zach: [laughs] No, not 16. Nope, nope, nope. There's no creep life around here. Nope, you are 24, right? Or 25?Ade: I am 25.Zach: Congratulations on turning 25.Ade: 25.Zach: I was gonna say--I was in the middle of my shout-outs and my thanks before you rudely called me old. So my grandmother-in-law and then my wife made some incredible bread pudding. She made bread pudding with crossiants and then didn't use buttermilk for the cream, instead used--what'd she use? Egg nog just because she ran out of butter and was like, "Eh, it's kind of the same." That egg nog was HITTING. I said, "Yo, what is this?" I mean, it got ate up. Shout-out to my sister-in-law Holly. She made some incredible mac 'n cheese. And Holly--listen, man, shout-out to Holly, man. She is cool people. Sister-in-law, you know? I definitely consider her a Bucky, you know what I'm saying, in this space of allyship and war and fighting for equity and justice for underrepresented people. And you know how I know Holly is an ally? And I haven't told her this, so if she listens to this podcast it'll be her first time hearing this. [Ade laughs] I knew that she was an ally--first of all she's an ally off top, 'cause, I mean, come on. She's been down. She's been doing this. But a reminder of her allyship--'cause this is not the determinant, 'cause she's be an ally off of a bunch of other stuff--a reminder of her allyship, she was making macaroni and cheese, and she baked the macaroni and cheese, and I said, "I knew it, dawg. I knew it." Ade: [laughs] I...Zach: No, let me tell you something. She has never--she has yet to let me down. She holds it down, bro. She holds it down. Ade: You are so incredibly canceled. I can't.Zach: [laughing] Shout-out to Holly, my sister-in-law. Shout-out to all of my allies out there. And if you call yourself an ally and you're not baking your macaroni and cheese, you are not an ally, dawg.Ade: We don't know you in these streets.Zach: We do not know you in these streets if you do not bake your macaroni and cheese. Bake it. It is not done until it's baked.Ade: Because I don't--what are you doing? You are serving undercooked food.Zach: What are you doing here? What are you doing here? You're giving me these wet, hot noodles? Bake it.Ade: That don't even sound right.Zach: It don't. How something wet hot--come on, relax. So anyway, but man, let me tell you something. The highlight, from a cuisine perspective, was when my uncle Marvin brought in these pecan candies. My goodness. Listen, I said [blessings come in sfx]. Boy, the bless--boy, ooh. Too good.Ade: [laughing] What is your problem? Man.Zach: Bro. Man, let me tell you something. And everybody got their own little bag. Handed me that bag, I said [Kawhi what it do baby sfx, laughing]Ade: All right. So you are just starting 2020 off on all types of foolishness. All right, heard you.Zach: Listen, man, I'm over here--I'm so excited, 'cause you ain't been around for a while, but see, since you've been gone, we've been using this soundboard. And I'ma share the soundboard--Ade: I can tell.Zach: Oh, listen. The soundboard is heat rock. [owww sfx] You know? I just really enjoy it quite a bit. So let me think about this. You still haven't talked about the food that you ate.Ade: Oh, yeah. I have been really on, like, a smoky kick lately, so I had, like--I made macaroni and cheese but with all smoked cheeses, and it was just--Zach: 'Cause you like cheese like that. We talked about this. Like, were you just introduced to cheese recently?Ade: Yes, I was very, very recently, like a year ago, introduced to cheese. I have discovered that I'm still quite lactose intolerant. Like, my ancestors were not with the lactose tip, but you know what? I'ma take my chances. I had my smoked mac 'n cheese, and I had it with the best collard greens I've ever made in all of my life. When I drizzled that little bit of just maple syrup right on it with that smoked turkey stock, I was just kind of like...Zach: Goodness, gracious!Ade: God loves me.Zach: Oh, He does. That's true.Ade: Like, this is--this is proof of the existence of the divine, and that dude loves me--or dudette, you know? Non-binary--Zach: Yes. You know, it's funny because, you know, you and I are sitting here, right? It was a crazy year. A lot of stuff going on. You know, things that we can share in time throughout Season 3. We're talking about physical health, mental health, emotional health, financial health, right? Career personal or professional development. It's interesting because, like--I don't know, man, and I'm kind of jumping all around 'cause I'm so excited. I'm excited for you to be here, but I'm excited just to, like, kick off this season, and so, like, this is, like, a loosey--like, we don't have a formatted, you know, interview or anything like that. We're just chopping it up, welcoming Ade back all the way, but I don't know, man. It's just been a lot, and it's just interesting because we were creating content for Living Corporate, and at the same time we were--you know, it was helping us while we were helping other people, you know what I'm saying? So let's do this. Like we said before, you have something that you already had, like, created and recorded that I think would be really helpful for us to put in on this episode, so why don't we talk a little bit about that and then we'll transition to that?Ade: Awesome.Zach: So talk to me about, like, what was it? Like, I know we talked about--like, your journey, you've had some updates in your life and what you've been doing professionally and personally. Like, what was it that we're gonna be listening to in a minute?Ade: Yep. I'm just gonna take a sip of my mimosa, because I just feel really good about where I am right now spiritually, so...Zach: There you go.Ade: [clears throat] La la la la. All right, y'all. So your girl is officially a junior software engineer. [champagne popping sfx] Pop! [laughs] Yeah, no. I started my new position as a junior software engineer, and it's honestly been surreal, my entire experience. I applied for a job, got a call back almost instantaneously. So I made it through the first call, the phone screening with the recruiter, and then I had a technical interview, and then I had an in-person interview that was also sort of technical, and then I had a job offer. And all of that took the span of a week and a half. I literally applied to the job on a Wednesday. The Friday after that--like, the week after that, on Friday, I had the job offer in my hand, and I actually had a competing job offer to move to Boston at the time. So it was--it honestly was an incredibly surreal experience. I went from there were days I would literally wake up to, like, five, six, seven, eight letters of rejection in my email first thing in the morning, and I would like to kind of explore a little bit further the toll that job searching takes on your mental health, because there's--there were certainly days when I would literally just feel dejected. In a society where you are kind of graded--not just graded, your worth is judged off of, you know, in relation to you and relation to your humanity, how much are you worth within a capitalistic system? And my job at the time was incredibly toxic. I felt dejected pretty much every single day waking up, but that wasn't the end of it, and I am so glad it wasn't. And it was, you know, thanks to people like you, people like my best friend Kendall, people like Liz, who really, like, affirmed me, because I have a tendency to internalize situations and, you know, look for ways in which these things were my fault. And I remember even having a conversation with Liz where she literally said, "These are all symptoms of an emotionally abusive relationship," and I'm like, "How do you have an emotionally abusive relationship with your job?" [laughs] But that's entirely real. It's a real thing, and just being able to step back from all of that and literally, like, wash my hands off at the end of the year and never have to speak to those people again or never have to be in a situation in which I feel as though I'm compromising my mental health for the sake of I have to take care of my family and I have to protect what's mine... yeah, you guys are gonna hear a whole lot more of that as the episode continues, but I'm nothing short of eternally grateful for the fact that 2019 is over, but it's over and I took it like a G. Zach: Yo, and shout-out to you for that. [both laugh] Yo, 2019 was hard.Ade: 2019 whooped my ass, okay? But you know what? I whooped it back.Zach: Listen, 2019 was--2019 was coming from your boy's neck, okay? It was like, "We're coming for you, sucka." It's like, "My gosh, leave me alone, 2019. What y'all doing?" But you're right though, and you know what? Look, it's a new year.Ade: Yep. New me.Zach: Yeah, it's a new year. New spaces, new mindsets. You know, new opportunities and just space to reset and really get bcak on it, right? Like, I'm hoping that most of us were able to take some time away for the holidays so we could come back at least somewhat refreshed for a new year, a new decade. You know, a lot of people have been saying new decade and stuff, but let's just take every day as a blessing that it's a new day, right? Like, you may not see 2030, right? But you have--if you're listening to this right now, you have this day today. And so just being excited about that. Let's see here. We're gonna transition over there. Before we do that, Ade, is there anything else that we need to talk about?Ade: I do want to make a quick note about--so we're currently in a time of upheaval. I'm not gonna make too much reference to that, I just want to kind of make the point--well, two points, one that we don't lose sight of humanity as a whole in trying to protect our daily reality, and two that you don't let whatever's happening in the news cycle sway you off of the intentions that you've set for this year. You set those intentions for a reason. You set those goals, whatever that you did, for a reason, and hopefully you are recognizing all the ways in which the news cycle could be causing any number of anxious or negative thoughts or anything like that, but I do want you to be able to step back, and by you I mean the entire Living Corporate family. Be able to recognize when you are stuck in a feedback loop of negative thoughts, negative news, negative content, and kind of find your way back to your center, because as long as there is a world out there, there is always going to be negativity to feed into, but don't let your 2020 start off with that. We literally just kicked 2019's butt. 2020, let's focus more on our communities. Let's focus on our mental health and smashing our goals.Zach: Yo, amen to that, you know what I'm saying? Like, I super agree. [Ade snapping in the background, laughing] And, you know, I think what you're speaking to also is, like--so you talked about upheaval. That reminds me of two things. One, I just read this article--and I'll put it in the show notes--called Democracy Grief is Real, and it's an opinion piece from the New York Times, which is, like--we can talk about the New York Times at a separate time, but this particular piece was very good, and just talking about the toll, the mental and emotional toll, that the world's events has taken on you. Like, just being more and more aware of, like, systemic injustices, oppression and, like, blatant unethical behaviors, like, just the impact that it has on you just living, right? Just you seeing that, what does it do to you? And I think, you know, to that point, like, I'm really excited because this season, we're gonna be talking about real structural inequity. We're gonna be talking about--like, we're really gonna be calling out white supremacy and patriarchy and privilege and access and holding people, institutions of power, to account when it comes to how they can better support and create more equitable places for black and brown folks, for underrrepresented folks, for non- straight white able-bodied men to work and to exist and to live, you know? I think 2020 is gonna be a really interesting decade in that you have, like--I think that there's a certain level of consciousness that, like, people are waking up to. I don't think there's gonna be some great revival or anything like that, so don't misquote me, but I do think that, like, certain things are coming to a head. I do think that, like, when you talk about diversity, equity and inclusion work, there just is gonna be less and less space for, like, the corporatized, white-washed talk tracks that we typically hear. I think that--I just don't see those things surviving. I think that, like, technology and just access is changing for black and brown folks to the point where--and this generation, like, they're just not gonna stay. Like, they're just not gonna stay and put up with being mistreated. And we've seen it already. Like, we've seen it. First of all, this is not a new phenomenon. We've seen this since--we've seen this from the jump, for black folks at least, but just for all oppressed groups in America, eventually there's going to be resistance, and I just think that that's bubbling up into these very, like, corporate spaces too, and so I'm excited because some of the guests that we have this season are really gonna be getting into that, really giving, like, really honest and approachable at the same time advice on what leaders can be doing to either disrupt or dismantle systems that have historically disadvantaged black and brown folks, underrepresented folks, and I'm just really excited about that. Like, we had a few people hit me up last season, Ade, like, kind of salty about, like, the content.Ade: Really?Zach: Yeah, just a little bit. Like, just a little.Ade: Why though?Zach: Why? Well, they were like--they just felt like some of it was a little too--a little too honest, a little too black, you know what I'm saying? But--Ade: May I address that real quick?Zach: Go ahead. [laughing] Ade: Ah, let me lubricate my throat. [clears throat] ~Kick rocks.~Zach: [laughs] There are folks who want to do diversity, equity and inclusion, but they're trying to figure out a way to do it without, like, offending white folks or offending the people in the majority, so--Ade: Which I don't understand. I don't believe your sincerity as someone who professes that--and I recently saw a tweet, and I wish I could quote my source, but I saw someone say "Switch the D in DE&I from Diversity to Decolonization."Zach: Oooooooh! Ade: Fire.Zach: That--wait, hold--what? Yo, that is--Ade: Fire. Fire.Zach: No, that is--[Flex bomb sfx] That is fiiiiiiiireeeee. Are you kidding me? [air horns sfx] Switch the D from diversity to decolonization?Ade: Bro, it literally changed for me the entire framework of DE&I, because if you were taking a liberation stance within the context of what a workplace environment needs to be, you are approaching that from the context of not only do we not care about your discomfort, we're actually actively pursuing your discomfort because your discomfort is where your decolonization lies. Like, that's where you're going to address all of the biases you have that you've had the privilege thus far of not having to confront. And not even your biases, but we're, like, actively taking back space from you and giving voice to the people that have been deliberately silenced in these spaces. So again, the reason I say kick rocks is because, I mean, we're decolonizing this space. This is a decolonized space, my accent aside, so we're really not--[both laughing] Inside joke. So as far as I'm concerned, like, there's no such thing as prioritizing the feelings of the oppressor over the oppressed. And yes, by default, if you are not the oppressed, you are the oppressor. That's--Zach: And this is a binary that we actually accept on Living Corporate, you know what I'm saying? You know, we affirm LGBTQIA+ identity, right? You know what I'm saying? We had content last season about being non-binary. Yo, that's great though. I'm trying to find this tweet that you said. If you just made that up it's still fire, but--Ade: I swear I saw it on Twitter.Zach: It's just a great quote. I love that. I love that. But no, you're absolutely right, and I think it's interesting because when you hear some of the episodes--when y'all hear some of the episodes that, like, we have this upcoming season, it's all about, like--like, these are people who are CEOs of, like, diversity, equity and inclusion firms. Like, they're consultants. They're executives. And I'm noticing there are certain, like, benchmarks around, like--you can kind of tell, like, kind of just where people are, but most people tie the diversity--they tie equity to justice, right? Like, when you talk about the true DE&I work in this space, it's all about justice, and it's interesting because I've seen, like, executives of, like, major corporations talk about--there was a recent article from Harvard Business Review about creating, like, black equity at work, and I was like, "Look, y'all are retweeting that. Consider what this means before y'all start saying you want equity at work." Equity at work means, like, a certain level of, like, right-sizing (?) and really, like, restorative behaviors that, like, America hasn't even, like, grasped onto yet. So, like, the concept of equity when it's truly driven to, like, its--like, when it's really grasped is, like, radical. Like, that's a radical thing to propose, and it would disrupt and disassemble so many things that have been longstanding, that have been comforting, to those in the majority, and so anyway... my whole point is that, like, I'm looking forward to, like, scaring myself with the content that we're putting out this season. I don't want to make--I don't want to pull any punches. I'm just excited about this season. So if you're listening to this and you're passionate about being seen, being heard, you're underrepresented, or you're an advocate, an ally of the underrepresented at work, and you'd like to journey with us, you'd like to be on the show with us, just contact us through the website. I guess that's it, you know? What we're gonna do now is we'll pivot over to Ade's recording that she had, and this was last year, so if you hear any references that's what that's about, but we're really excited for y'all to check that out. Ade, any parting words before we transition up out of here?Ade: No, let's just, in 2020, resolve to live our best lives, and I mean that in, like, the healthiest way possible. I've been guilty of using that phrase to justify the worst of my excesses [?] in the past, and no promises that I won't do so again in 2020, but let's resolve to, you know, prioritize our health, and our mental health in particular, and, you know, check in on your friends, because many, many, many of your friends are having a difficult time and don't know how to say it, but I believe in the power of community, and I believe that we as a whole are capable of holding each other accountable, yes, but also really uplifting each other in ways that are awesome to behold. And I do mean that in the old school awesome--shout-out to Zach, you know, reviving the meanings of old words, but... [both laughing] Old school awesome in that, like, awe-inspiring [way]. But yeah, you're listening to Living Corporate, y'all. [both laughing] Peace.Zach: All right, y'all. Welcome to Season 3. Hope y'all stay around. Excited for y'all to come on this audio adventure with us this year, and we'll catch y'all, shoot, next week. Peace.Ade: What's up, y'all? This is Ade. I just wanted to pop my head back in. It's been a very, very long time since I've been around, and it's been intentional. It was an intentional break. I had to--this has been a very difficult year for me, but also one of the best years of my life. I had to take a step back from a lot of things and really reassess, you know, my journey, my progress, and really where I'm trying to go with my life. That sounds like a lot. Good news, bad news. Bad news is, you know, I turned 25 and I still don't know what I'm doing. [laughs] I still don't truly know the meaning of life, my life, but, you know, it's cool. I'm still defining that, building my parachute on the way down. Good news. Remember when I said I wanted to be an engineer? I did it! I got an official offer, and I will be starting in my role very, very soon. Your girl is officially a full stock software engineer - junior software engineer, but a software engineer nonetheless, and I just kind of wanted to share what went into all of this. It's been nearly two years. Actually, it's been two years since I decided that I was gonna do this, and it's been I think the hardest thing I've ever done, and this episode is all about telling you how and why. This is Ade, and you're listening to Living Corporate. In order to be successful, I have distilled all of the things that I've learned down to three key ingredients - grit, faith, and humor. So many of you have been following this podcast for a while, and you might not know, me, since I've been gone for such a long time, you may not know why I am where I am and what led me to deciding that I was gonna become a software engineer, and the story I always tell is that, you know, on the eve of my 23rd birthday I wrote 23 promises to myself, and the very first one was that I was gonna learn a new skill and I'd learn how to code. What a lot of you don't know is that the reason I even got there in the first place is because I went through a really, really bad break-up--and this is gonna be, like, super vulnerable, and I am not gonna make eye contact with anybody who listens to this for, like, a solid year, because I don't bare my soul this often. [laughs] Yeah, so I went through a really bad break-up, and it had me questioning, you know, myself, my self-worth, whether I was a good person, and it really, like, shook me to my core, and in the midst of this break-up, right before my birthday, I had gone to a workshop called Hear Me Code. It's an organization now semi-defunct, but it's led by a lady named Shannon Turner, who takes an afternoon and just teaches a whole bunch of women the basics of Python. And there are three levels. There's Level 1, which is what I found myself in, and then you have Level 2, who are people who have already been to Level 1 who have the fundamentals and are trying to get a little bit better, and then you have Level 3, which is people who have been to both Level 1 and 2 or are more intermediate programmers and are, like, [?] projects and all of that, all of the other fun stuff. Now, into this little story is where I find myself. I went to this thing. I had dropped out of grad school. I was, again, in the middle of this, like, super toxic break-up, and I just needed to feel good about myself, and so I decided, "You know what? I'm gonna be spontaneous and I'm gonna do this thing." And I had this old rinky-dink laptop. It took, like, 15 minutes to get started. And I didn't know a thing about anything. My whole life up until this point had been political science and sociology and philosophy, and I consider myself a relatively cerebral person, but, like, not smart. Like, I was not--I didn't consider myself in any way technical. I avoided math like my life depended on not knowing what, like, algebra was. It really--I defined myself as a person who was incapable of doing certain things, and programming would be one of those things, and so in this time when I found myself and my definition of myself unraveling, I needed to know that I was still capable of finding joy in the little things. So I went to this workshop, and I loved it. Like, my computer couldn't, like, do anything, so I actually found myself on a website called Repl.it, and it's basically, like, an online environment where you can write code and run it and see it work, and you don't necessarily need to have, like, mastery over your terminal, you don't need to concern yourself with anything that's going on on the backend. You can literally just, like, print "hello world," and it'll print hello world, and it is a magical, magical place. And this was important because first it showed me the value of creating. Never considered myself a creative, but being able to be in a space where I was literally, like, forming whole things and commanding the computer to do something and it did it, I felt powerful. I felt like a magician. I thought, "You know what? I'm gonna learn how to code," but then my computer died and I packed that up, and I didn't really pick up programming again for several months after and then came the end of October. I had, you know, moved out of my apartment at the time. Again, this, like, really, really scary thing had happened to me with my ex, and I had moved home, and I felt like a failure, and I was, like, laying in a sleeping bag next to my mom's bed, and I was up all night just, like, writing these promises to myself. I had sourced promises from other people, but the very first thing I could recall thinking was, like, "I want to be better. I want to be a better version of myself, and the gap between who I am now and the best version of myself can be bridged. I know it." So I thought "You know what? I'm gonna challenge myself. I'm gonna make these promises, and I'm going to keep t hem, and I'm going to find 24-year-old Ade to be a better version than 23-year-old Ade, period. No questions about it. I'm not doing this again." So I wrote those promises and I asked the people I love to hold me to them, and in the next year I moved out--like, I think three weeks after that I found another apartment, moved out to Alexandria, found a job that I really liked, and it all seemed to be coming together, but then my computer, the old rinky-dink computer, just died, and I didn't have a whole lot of, like, personal time, so programming just kind of went by the wayside. Like, I would pick it up every once in a while, and I would complete a couple of sessions or a couple of lessons, and that'd be that, but then I applied for this Udacity scholership and I got it, which, if you know anything about me it's that, like, I really don't win things very often, which goes into the narrative that you tell yourself about yourself, right? About whether or not you're a winner or whether or not you're deserving, whether or not, like, this life thing is a thing that you can succeed at. And, like, as a side-bar, negative self-talk has been a thing for me as long as I can remember. I have never been the sort of person who wakes up in the morning and is like, "You can do this. You're amazing. You're awesome. You can take anything that life throws at you," etc. A. I'm not a morning person, so, like, don't talk to me until 11:00 a.m., and B. I just never had the voices in my head that were, like, super positive. Like, all the voices in my head were kind of assholes. Sorry to whoever's listening to this and doesn't like bad words, but they were, and so throughout this process I've actually learned that, like, affirmations are a huge, huge, huge thing for your mental health, and it's something that I incorporate now into, like, my life. Like, affirmations. You need to hear yourself speaking well of yourself to yourself, and if you take nothing else from this podcast, take that. So we're back in, what is this, 2018? Yeah. Is it 2018? I don't think it's 2018. What is this, 2019? The years melt together. Yeah, it is 2018 actually. So in 2018 I have this fantastic job, friends, and I meet somebody new, and everything is going swimmingly, but I'm not truly, like, learning at the pace that I should be, so I'm going to tell you about the very first mistake that I think I made out of--the biggest mistake I made, not the very first one, because whoo, there were many. There were many, they were varied, and they were huge. Now the very first mistake I made was that I let myself get distracted. Life is not a distraction. Joy is not a distraction. Being social, letting yourself love and be love is not a distraction. What is a distraction is when you create a goal for yourself and you do not take the necessary steps in order to get there. Now, there were times throughout this journey--and anybody who knows me can attest to this--where I'd work a full work day and I'd come home and work until 2, 3, 4, 5:00 a.m. in the morning even studying, or I'd wake up at 2:00 a.m. and study all the way through, get dressed, go to work, come back home, continue studying. And I'm not saying that that's something that you have to do, I'm just saying that it's what I did. Then there were days where for, like, weeks at a time, I would not pick up a book. I would not open my Udacity course. None of those things. And allowing yourself to be distracted in that way is doing yourself a disservice, not only because your brain relies on consistency--like, you literally need consistency in order to get anywhere, right? Like, sometimes we have this fantasy in our heads that, like, we're smart, so all it'll take is, like, the movie montage of, like, a week of studying something, then you'll be perfect at it. But if you've ever heard of the tale of 10,000 hours, like... Lebron James and Gordon Ramsey and Insert Person Who Has A Mastery Of Their Art Here didn't get where they got because they put in a week of work. It required constant effort and practice to attain perfection, and allowing myself to get distracted was so much more detrimental than the times in which I would go at something for hours at a time, simply because during the distractions are where your negative self-talk becomes the loudest, right? Like, when the voices in your head that are telling you you're not capable of doing it, in that lull, that's when they seem right, right? Like, you don't do something correctly and you say, "Oh, my God. I'm never gonna amount to this lofty goal that I set for myself," right? Then you procrastinate and then you walk away, and now you have one more goal unfulfilled. So if you take, yet again, nothing else from this podcast, consistency is key. So if you remember at the beginning of this conversation I said "grit, faith, and humor." So grit is the concept that you are persistent, that you allow yourself to fail and you pick yourself up and you keep going. Actually, over the course of my studies I developed a mantra for myself because it got to be almost crippling, this fear that I had of failing, so I'm gonna read it to you guys. I hope it's helpful. I hope you guys like it. So here's my mantra: "This is why I'm here. I like succeeding at the difficult things. I like the win. I like the burning in my lungs and the adrenaline in my veins. I like the view from the top of the mountain and knowing I conquered. I am not a quitter. I do not lose. I will not be defeated by the gaps in my knowledge. I will not be defined by what I cannot do. I believe in my ability to make sense and wholeness out of the things that are new and scary. I will not be ruled by fear. Ever." There were days where I would write that mantra out to myself over and over and over again on a pen and a pad of paper. I would type that out before I got started sometimes on my lessons. I would read it over and over and over at myself in the mirror. Because fundamentally, this thing that I'm doing where I'm trying to, like, shift the course of my life--and it felt like the weight of my whole family was on my shoulders--that's scary. It's intimidating. If you don't have grit, it might crush you. And that goes for literally anything. For those of us who are underrepresented minorities, who are first-gen, who are the first in our families to attain a certain level of success, you know how scary that success is and the bare-knuckled grit that you have on everything to make sure that nothing falls and nothing fails. You have to let go of that. That fear is only keeping you from being the best version of yourself. By the way, this whole process didn't turn me into, like, a motivational speaker either. So [laughs] if you want to, like, skip through half of this, that's totally okay. I'm not taking offense. All right, so I told you why you need grit. Now why do you need faith? Faith got me through the worst of what grit couldn't. After I got to a place where, you know, I had done all of the things that people say that you need to do--you learn the fundamentals, and then you learn the framework, then you build projects, build more projects, build a portfolio, build more projects--after I did all that I started applying. I applied to internships. I applied to externships. I applied to jobs in Poland. I applied to jobs in Iceland. I applied to jobs that would require me to live in places where it's -20 degrees on a regular-degular-schmegular day, and I don't know if you know me, but I'm African, and we don't do that. [laughs] And every single time I got, like, a "No, thank you. Sorry, but no thank you. We have decided to move on to other candidates at this time. Best of luck." One that actually really shattered me--I got all the way through a lot of the screening questions, and this company that shall not be named sent me a link to a personality quiz. And I took it. I was like, "Okay, cool. Whatever." And then they sent me an email back like, "Sorry, your personality is not best-suited for my company." I'm like, "Wow. My whole personality, fam? My whole personality is not best-suited to be a software engineer? Bet." But I had faith, right? Like, you reach a plateau once you have done the work and you've put in the effort and you've put in your blood, sweat, and tears--I actually bled once. Long story. Don't want to talk about it. [laughs]--and yes, there were lots and lots of tears, but once you get there there's a certain faith that you have, right? And it helps when you have people around you who keep you keeping the faith. For me, I had my best friend. My best friend is also a self-taught developer, and it's really uncanny, but we're the same person. He has, like, 8 years on me, but we are genuinely, like, the same person. It is so odd. We have the exact same reactions to things, the same mentality, but he's a better version, right? Like, he's had 8 years to hone his craft. And the level of dedication and will that he showed, I had to level up. I had to match that level of intensity, and when I ever felt like I couldn't do it, he always came through with a pep talk. Before my very last interview where I got this position, I will never forget. I was on my way to my interview, and he literally said, "You're not looking for a job to be a developer. You are a developer. You're just looking for a chance to prove it." And that confidence I think showed up in my interview, because I have never spoken so confidently about MPC controllers. [laughs] I've never spoken so confidently about use-state hooks in my life. And that faith that I had that everything was gonna work out, I keep that still, right? Like, ever since I got the position, I've had the recurring thoughts of "What if I get there and I flame out? What if they rescind their offer three days before I get there?" You know, any number of, like, worst-case scenarios, and I now have this new voice--super quiet, but it's there--that's saying, "Bro, you'll be okay. The same way you got that job is the same way that if anything happens to that job you'll get another, because you've done the work. You've done the work and you've gotten this far. Doesn't matter what anybody else says now." So last thing you'll need is a sense of humor. You may have heard me chuckling a few times, and that's because I remember the number of days where I literally would have to get up in the middle of my studies and have a dance break. I would reward myself with dance breaks, whether or not my code was actually working, because I felt that because all of this was so heavy and because I needed to tap into my, like, inner wells of grit and strength that I did not have before I started this process--trust me, I was a wilting flower in the sun before any of this got started, and I'm still a wilting flower in the sun in a lot of ways, but--levity and humor are so underrated, because it literally lightens your spirit, right? Like, finding a way to find a way to laugh will take you far, not only because it shows that, like, you're still here, like, the core of your personality has not changed, it also shows that, like, there's a light at the end of the tunnel. You might feel like you're going through the crucible of your life at this point, but at the end of it life is still what you make it, right? And I just laugh through things. I choose to find the levity and find the joy and find the light and hold onto it, and that's all I'm gonna say about that. In whatever ways you find humor and find joy, I encourage you to hold onto that. So now some actionable tips, because I've just been giving you the feels. [laughs] Some real things that you can actually do if you want to be a developer. #1: Set a goal. That was the very first mistake that I made. I said, "I want to learn how to code." I didn't say, "I want to learn how to be a front-end developer or a back-end developer or a full-stack developer or a DevOps engineer." If you don't know what any of those things are, good. Go look them up. Anybody these days who asks me how they can break into tech, how they can learn how to code, how any of those things, the very first thing you need to do is define your goal, set it, and then develop your roadmap, because otherwise you are literally going to be twisting in the wind because you have no idea where you're going. There's nothing worse than a nebulous understanding of what you want. If you start a journey, you have to know where you're going. I mean, sure, you can do what I did and, like, get in the car and say, "I want to go somewhere," and, like, find yourself stranded in the middle of Oklahoma... but, like, I wouldn't advise that. Don't do that. Do it the smart way. Define what you actually want to do. Sometimes you might, like, look up what front-end developers do and be like, "Yeaaaaaaaah, no. How about I go into cybersecurity?" Like, it's an entire about-face, which is why you need to--it's a good thing to do to define the parameters. It also helps you know when you have succeeded, right? A lot of the fear that I had when I first started to apply to positions was that, like, I don't know that I'm a developer yet, right? I don't know that I'm good enough to apply to places, and that's because I never defined for myself what it means to be good enough to apply to places, right? There are places that will take you when you are, like, an unformed ball of Play-Do and fashion a developer out of you, and then there are places that want you to show up as Michelangelo's David and then, and only then, will they give you a position in the company, and then there are places that are vastly varied in-between and you have to figure out what it means to, like, throw your dart at one of those places in-between or, you know, whatever end of the spectrum you want to live in, and know that you're able to get into those doors. Set a goal. #2: It is okay to reassess or change your mind. When I first got started, I said, "I'm gonna be a front-end developer." Actually, no, I said, "I'm gonna be a full-stack developer," and then I said, "I want to be a blockchain engineer." And then I said, "I don't want to do this at all actually. Never mind. I change my mind." And then I said, "You know what? Being a full-stack engineer sounds good. How about I do that?" You can do that, just make sure it all goes back to #1. Make sure that once you've changed your mind, once you've reassessed, once you've course-corrected, you still set a goal and define for yourself what it means to have reached it. Cool. #3: Learn from others. I cannot stress this enough. Learn from others. Learn. Learn from others. Quick ASMR for your head top. Learn from others. It's important. A. This is an industry, tech in general, that is far more collaborative than you might think it is. If the idea you have of hackers in your head is the person who's, like, in a basement somewhere and frantically, like, typing on their keyboard and I don't understand how they haven't broken their keyboard, but they're frantically typing and you see a whole bunch of, like, green letters and numbers on their screen, and it's great, and then, like, five seconds after they stop typing--[Ade types frantically]--"Got it! I'm in." Yeah, no. That's... no. If I'm typing that furiously, it's because I'm looking around on StackOverflow trying to figure out where I went wrong. There are whole communities on Reddit, StackOverflow, Free Code Camp, which are geared towards helping you not sit and look for six hours for an answer to a question that 100 million people have also spent six hours searching for an answer to. Like, you literally can go to StackOverflow or, like, type out whatever your error is, and then at the end of your error type "StackOverflow," and I can almost guarantee you--like, you're not the first person to break whatever it is that you broke. There is nothing new under the sun. Maybe a new language, maybe a new framework, maybe a new whatever, but there is something that is so new that somebody else hasn't thought about it, asked that question and probably solved it. So yeah, allow the successes and failures of others to help inform you. Learning from others is not just about being online. Part of the thing that helped me, I went to meet-ups. I actually briefly served as an organizer for Black Code Collective, which, like, will forever have my heart. Women Who Code, [?]. There's so many different meet-ups. And, you know, D.C.'s not unique in having those organizations. They're all over. Go to meetup.com, as long as it exists, and look for those communities near you, and be intentional about the workshops that you go to, the people that you meet, because those networks are also important. You do not have the luxury, if you're a self-taught developer, of sitting back and waiting for the universe to, like, drop knowledge or networks or contacts or jobs into your lap. You have to do the legwork of developing and building those communities for yourself, which brings me to my final point. Standing on the shoulders of giants still requires you to do the work. I'm gonna repeat that because I kind of said it fast. Standing on the shoulders of giants still requires you to do the work. One more time for those in the back. Standing on the shoulders of giants still requires you to do the work. You have to do the work. There are no shortcuts through it. I'm not one of those people that, like, tells you, "You have to work 50, 60 hour weeks in order to get where I am." I'm telling you what I did. But there's something universal about what anybody else has done. You have to do the work. We all have done the work. We're going to continue doing the work, because this is not an industry that stagnates. I'm sure whatever I learned back in 2018--I mean, literally, what I learned in 2018 about React has changed because of React Hooks. So I don't know what to tell you. You have to do the work. There's nobody who's gonna, like, come and crack your skull open and dump all that there is to know about programming in your head or whatever it is that you want to study, whether you want to be, like, in cybersecurity, you want to be a PIN tester, you want to be a cloud engineer, cloud architect. None of those things are going to happen unless you do the work. You have to do the work, and for those of us--this is a part that I hate having to say, but for those of us who are underrepresented minorities, you will hear people say "Take shots that mediocre white men will take," because, you know, "They're a mediocre white man and they'll take it, so why can't you?" I'm not saying you can't. I'm saying that you have to pull up to those rooms as the person that you are because they will check you in ways that they won't check the mediocre white man. If there are gaps in your knowledge, that's something that a weekend of studying can fix. You cannot allow there to be gaps in your will. You cannot allow there to be gaps in your faith in yourself. Well, yeah, that comes right back to the very first thing that I mentioned - grit, faith, and humor. You cannot allow there to be gaps in any of those things. I hope this helped. I am also gonna be writing a thread about this later on. There's a thread out there, it's called #30DaysOfThreads, and I'm probably gonna be contributing to that hashtag just to share more concretely some of the tools, some of the resources that I've used, so I look forward to sharing some of that information with y'all. I really hoped that this helped and I wasn't just, like, ranting for no reason. [laughs] Which I've been known to do, and I hope that, for those of you who are going on a similar journey--and this has been pretty tech-specific thus far, but people do career pivots in any sort of direction, right? Like, there are people who are pivoting from having a 9-to-5 to being an entrepreneur, and I think there's some things that are universal. If you are pivoting from being a banker to being a teacher, there's some things that are universal. You are going to need grit. You are going to need faith. You are going to need humor. Maybe that should be the title of the show, I don't know. [laughs] All right, that's it from me. Thank you for listening. The Living Corporate family has been incredibly supportive. I want to thank Zach in particular for not giving up on me, because somewhere between all of those months--I think there were months at a time that I gave up on myself, and it showed, [laughs] but we're here now. I also want to give a quick shout-out to my grandma, who died I think two weeks before--was it two weeks? Yeah, two weeks before I actually got this position, and now I'm gonna be a little teary on the mic. Like I said, 2019 was a hard one, but... I come from a very long line of powerful, intelligent, capable women, and she was one of those, and the world is a slightly dimmer place without her, but... I gained an angel, and there's nothing more empowering than knowing that you did this thing, turned everything around for yourself, and being able to, like, look up and say, "I did it, and I know that she saw it." Okay, I'm gonna stop now. I've been, like, more vulnerable in this I want to say 40+ minutes than I've been in, like, a year, so this is my dose of vulnerability and realness. I'm gonna go back to masking my vulnerability with many, many things that I'm not gonna be discussing on this podcast. [laughs] All right, I'm gonna go. Thank you so much for listening, for your support, for your guidance, for your prayers. This has been Ade. You've been listening to Living Corporate. Peace!

Zach welcomes Angela L. Shaw back to the podcast to talk about what it looks like to both create opportunities for yourself and model inclusive behaviors as a leader and more. She also offers people of color three points of advice on how they can navigate the process of creating your own opportunities.Connect with Angela on LinkedIn!Visit our website!TRANSCRIPTZach: What's up, y'all? It's Zach with Living Corporate. Now look, we have great guests on the show. Y'all should know this, right? And every now and then we get folks who come back to the show because, you know, we had such a great conversation. And look, I don't want people--if you came here one time, don't get in your feelings, okay? You can also come back, okay? These people just happened to come back, and we love the fact that they came back. If you're listening to this and you were only on the show one time and you're like "Dang, well, what's that supposed to mean about me?" Listen, hit us up, come on back, okay? That being said, we do have a returning guest, Ms. Angela Shaw. [kids cheering sfx] Angela, how are you doing? Welcome back.Angela: Thank you, Zach. I'm doing fantastic. I am on top of the world. I love my life. And thank you so much for letting me come back. I'm super excited to talk today.Zach: Oh, nah, nah, nah. You know what I'm saying? I mean, you know, when we found out, you know, you could come back, I was just over here like [that ain't no problem sfx]. You know, it's not a problem at all. Like, I'm excited that you're here, you know what I mean? Now look, the last time we spoke you were--you know, we were talking about professional reinvention and how you really, like, created an HR career for yourself, and really--you're also the president-elect of [?] Austin, right?Angela: That is correct.Zach: Right? So you were appointed, you know what I'm saying, as president, but you were not yet, you know, anointed as president, you know what I'm saying? So what have you been up to since then?Angela: Well, Zach, I'm president this year all year. [what it do baby Kawhi sfx, both laugh] And I'm making it count. And I want to say the reinvention continues. Like, it doesn't stop. It is a continuous thing. I am continuously trying to reinvent myself and stay relevant. This year as president has been so humbling, but it has been so successful and so wonderful. My platform as president is #PushForProgress related to diversity and inclusion, so I really in my chapter try to model the behavior that I think everybody else should have when it comes to being inclusive. The board, my board, they've gotten on board with that. They are also modeling that behavior. Our meetings have been successful. We're having great attendance. We just had our annual conference, and Zach, let me tell you, we had not one but two inclusion keynotes, and they were fire. They were fire. I feel like it's something that my organization had not seen before, and it was successful, and it was uplifting, and it was allied behavior, and it was just--it was wonderful. I'm just--I'm so blessed and, you know, just living life. I mean, I'm fortunate to love what I get to do every day.Zach: So let's take it a couple steps back. You talked about--'cause again, you kind of gave me, like, an overview, right, but I gotta slow it down. So you talked about folks practicing and you modeling inclusive behaviors and then people practicing inclusive behaviors. What does that mean to model inclusive behaviors as a leader?Angela: We all have bias. I know a lot of diversity and inclusion people talk about the bias that everybody else has, but I think as a leader in the space you break down your own bias first. So I know I have bias. I've had them, you know, just growing up with my experiences. It is difficult to not be hardened by your experiences, but I had to unpack my own boxes first. So I had to look at what my bias was, and how do I go into an organization like AHRMA in a city like Austin with long history--you know, 69 years this organization has been in Austin. How do I go in and unpack my boxes and be the leader that everybody wants to follow? And so I speak to everybody. I say hello to everybody. I give before I get. I make connections, you know? I model the behavior that I want everybody else on the board and in my organization to have, because for me diversity and inclusion is grassroots. That's how I think about it. So every person that I can touch and make them want to activate their power--power is dormant until you activate it, and not activating it is the same as doing something negative with it. You're complicit. So I encourage everybody to activate their power for inclusion, and I model that behavior first.Zach: I got you. Okay, so what I'm hearing is you're coming in, you are engaging people groups that you may have implicit biases or even, like, conscious bias of, in the effort of making sure that they are--that they feel included and that they're a part of the organization, and then your board members, be they white men, black women, Latinx, trans folks, like, whoever, they are also engaging and reaching out across their cohort [?] to make sure that they too are being inclusive and that they too are, like, making sure that people feel as if they have a voice and that they are empowered to speak up and things of that nature.Angela: Absolutely, and we do actual things, like have greeters that greet everybody who comes to a meeting, that introduce themselves, that take them into the room to a seat and introduce them to other people. We have a new member orientation that I attend, every single one, so that I can stand up and tell everybody welcome and how grateful we are that they're there and that they support our organization. You know, this is actual behavior that we all have in activating our power for inclusion.Zach: Really helpful, and I love that. So when we talk about inclusion, a large part of inclusion really is all about, like, redistributing power or ensuring that other folks who have been historically disempowered have a voice and have some type of authority to make actual decisions, right? It's not just that they sit at the table. You have to have a voice at that table, right? What does it look like for you in your chapter to support folks actually have a voice and having power?Angela: Yeah. So our actual board is diverse, so whenever I was thinking about adding people to the board or talking to people about coming onto our board, I was very intentional in my outreach. So I didn't want the board to just look like one thing. I wanted people to see males and females. I wanted people to see different ethnic groups. And we have a diverse board, so that was the first thing. And then it was, you know, selling my vision to everybody for them to understand where I was trying to go with that and make sure that they were on board with it, and they've all been on board with it. The result has been that people who attend our meetings and who attended our conference have also been diverse. So there had been historically underrepresented people who did not always feel welcome for whatever reason, right? They didn't feel welcome. You know, that's no longer the case, so I know for sure that [HR&P?] are talking about the Austin Human Resources Management Association and probably a little bit around the state and nationally. We are inclusive. We are saying it and we are walking the talk too, so this is not just talk. It is we're having behavior, and you can see it and you can feel it.Zach: [to this day sfx]. I'm listening to you. I hear you. [both laugh]Angela: Zach, it's the truth. I'm telling you the truth.Zach: I'm--hey, what you want me to do? I already got the soundboard for you. I mean, [straight up sfx]. I mean, okay, I heard you. Hey, you're preaching. I'm just here. I'm listening. I receive it. You talked about unpacking your boxes, right? So for you to unpack your boxes and really, like, be honest and open about your biases, that takes a certain level of trust, right? Like, you can't just come in here--so let me just give you an example, right? [laughs] So, like, if you was at work, right, and I'm not--this is not your job. Let's just say--let's put the heat on me, okay? So let's say I'm at my job and, like, my boss, who's a white man, you know, is trying to be honest about his biases, right, and all of a sudden he says, "You know, Zach, I just have to tell you, I just never really liked the blacks." I'd be like [record scratch sfx]. Right? Like, I'd be like, "What do you mean? You can't just say that." What does it look like to safely communicate and share your biases in a way that facilitates conversation and trust? Angela: Yeah. So I think if we talk about your boss making that statement to you, obviously there is, on your part, needs to be some understanding. So one, they felt safe enough to even say that, so you've created a safe space to have a conversation. So we're gonna give cool points for that. So it's not a situation where you attack, it's a situation where you listen. So you ask questions about "Where do you think that comes from? Is it about how you grew up? Is it about experiences you've had?" I mean, helping that person unpack their boxes. If it's the other way around, like, "How do I feel safe to go into a situation and, you know, say something about my bias?" For me it took a lot of practice to be able to do that. So just as a public speaker who talks about diversity and inclusion and a lot of different situations and circumstances, I've been blessed to be in a lot of different places, to be able to have these conversations. I've gotten a lot better at being able to say the words. And they don't always come out right, but I think you get back up and you keep moving. If you need to apologize you do, and you keep moving. I mean, that's the only way we will have real action. So as a speaker I'm actually very vulnerable. I do that on purpose, because I want to connect on an emotional level. I want to be seen as a real person. These are real situations and issues that happen. I'm a real person with real feelings. Everybody else that you encounter who is an underrepresented group are not. Everybody has real feelings, and so I always want to connect on that emotional level. So, you know, I'm okay with being vulnerable using my real experiences, talking to people about what has happened to me, but not just what has happened to me, but how it made me feel. And then I think the rest of that though is that what do I do about it afterwards? Zach: What do you mean? Like, what do you mean when you say "What do I do about it afterwards?" What does that mean? Angela: Right. So I've had situations where I feel like I didn't get opportunities for jobs, that people didn't, you know, give me an opportunity to even get in the door and have a conversation with them. So what would I do about that? Well, I created bodies of work that people couldn't deny. So people will ask for recommendations, right? So in Austin, if somebody asked for a recommendation for an HR person, whether it's hiring or they need a connection or whatever, that's what I'm saying. I put in work to be on that list of people that somebody's gonna say, "You should talk to her." You know, for me, I think I'm to a place where I'm not gonna apply into a black hole anymore and hope that somebody's gonna give me an opportunity.Zach: Hm. You're gonna have a real conversation.Angela: Yes. I have created bodies of work that will get me in the room to have the right conversations.Zach: That's real talk.Angela: That's what I mean. What did I do afterwards? I created bodies of work afterwards.Zach: I love it. You know what, this is incredible. If you had three points of advice, right, for people of color who are at a job, they're seeking to, you know, create--they're looking for something else, but they feel stuck, and they don't understand what it really looks like for them to, like, create a new opportunity for themselves. It's easy to be like, "Hey, create your own opportunity," or da-da-da, but what does it look like to get beyond, like--'cause on its face, right, it seems kind of self-helpish. Like, "Just do it," but there's an actual science and process behind it. What advice would you give to the folks who are looking for, like, that practical advice on how they can navigate forward?Angela: The first thing I would say is dream big, so know where you want to go. So whatever your biggest, best, brightest dreams are, write them down. Make them real. That would be the first thing. So know where you're trying to go and make it big. [coin sfx] The second thing I would say is to connect with other people. So inside your organization, outside of your organization, people not in your department. Just connect with people. So you take the first step to get to know people, to hear their story, to make those emotional connections, so that when opportunities come up you're in the conversation. People need to know who you are. You know, I've been saying a lot lately, "It's not who you know, it's who knows you." [coin sfx] So how are you creating those opportunities where people know you? And then the third thing I would say is to take on any project that you have the opportunity to be on. So instead of whining or saying no or having an attitude or "I need more money," take on projects. Expand your skills, you know? Expand your skill set. Do different things. Have lots of different skills in your toolbox. [coin sfx] And those would be the three things that I would say that anybody can do to get to that next step.Zach: All right, y'all. Now, look, y'all heard Angela give y'all these points of wisdom. I even put the coin sound effect after the fact so y'all pay attention, so don't be--okay, you know, you're sitting around looking and trying to figure out what's going on, and I'm looking back at you like [haha sfx]. You need to pay attention, okay? Angela, she's giving you the wisdom, okay? Look, this has been a great conversation, Angela. Any shout-outs or parting words before we let you go?Angela: Absolutely. I have to shout out AHRMA, my board, all of our members and volunteers who have helped make this a very, very successful year, and like last time, Zach, I have to shout you out, because you are giving people opportunities to tell their story and to touch people and to help and support people, and I think that that is fantastic, so thank you so much for that. You are lifting up people, and I want you to know that. Zach: Oh, my goodness. Well, look here, thank you so much, Angela, and thank y'all for listening to the Living Corporate podcast. Y'all know where we at. Google us, okay? Living Corporate. We out here. We're really out here though, so, like, just check us out. Just Google Living Corporate. 'Til next time. Catch y'all later.

Zach sits down with two-time Paralympian James Roberts to continue and expand upon our discussion centered around being disabled while other. He talks about the role that sports and physical activity played in helping him become more of himself and transition to navigating the professional world. He also emphasizes the importance of being authentic to yourself and so much more. Connect with James on LinkedIn, Twitter, Instagram and Facebook, and visit his website!James has a podcast - click here to check it out! You can also subscribe to his YouTube!Stop by Living-Corporate.com!TRANSCRIPTZach: What's up, y'all? It's Zach with Living Corporate, and oh my goodness. So first of all let me shout out our listeners, okay? So shout out to my listeners in the States and my listeners--our listeners, right? 'Cause we actually have some international reach. You know, we got folks in Nigeria, stand up. We got some folks in the UK. Stand up. We have folks just all over that actually listen to Living Corporate, so I'm really excited about that, and I bring this up now, I bring up our reach, I bring up our international listeners, because of our guest today. Today we have with us James Roberts. So James Roberts is a public speaker, a motivator, a consultant, but many of the folks who know him know him by his athletic feats as he is a Paralympian who participated as recently in the 2012 Olympics. So we have him with us today, and we're really excited that he's on the show. What's up, James? How are you doing?James: I'm very well, Zach. How are you?Zach: Man, I'm doing really well. So first of all, again, excited we're able to finally link up. We've been trying to do this for, like, a year, you know what I'm saying? We finally got it done. Objective completed.James: Well, I think some things are worth waiting for.Zach: Come on, now. [both laugh] No, I 100% agree with you, and, you know, I'm really excited to have on the show. You know, we don't--we talk about non-white experiences on Living Corporate, right? And we talk about that from whatever it may be. So if you're non-white and first-generation, if you're non-white and LGBTQ, if you're non-white and non-binary. Like, we talk about all types of non-majority experiences, and we've only really to date had one really talk about being non-white and disabled, and so I'm really just thankful that we were able to make the time for you to be on the show today. So for those of us who don't know you, right, can you tell us a little bit about yourself?James: Well, I'll start right at the beginning, Zach. My upbringing is even probably slightly different to even where I live now, being in the UK, because both of my parents were in the Armed Forces. My father was in the U.S. Air Force and my mother worked for NATO, which is the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. So I have a slightly different upbringing to probably, well, people the same age as me growing up in the UK. I probably have a better understanding--obviously I had diversity impact my young childhood. I probably have a better, I would put it, understanding, a better tolerance of other people, because having grown up with a multitude of nationalities--I wouldn't even want to try and count how many that was--and I think that had a bearing on be it my young childhood from obviously--well, with the disability, but I think when you're as close to the fire--and I'll use that analogy as it being your life, you're living it day in day out--you never see things as black and white. You probably see it like a multitude of grays. Well, it's not adverse for me, and this probably comes back to be it how my parents and probably to a certain extent my family orientation, it's very much old school. It's "You're gonna sink or swim," and it's going back to probably the business sense of it. That's probably a good one because it puts you in a good place and doesn't--you don't really see things as a predicament because it's like, "Well, I've got two options. I can either learn or adapt, or I sink and I quote-unquote drown." So I think it's a good analogy to use moving forward.Zach: No, absolutely. So let's talk a little bit about your disability if you don't mind. Can you talk about your disability and what it is specifically?James: Absolutely. I come at it from two perspectives now because I like to keep it simple for people to be able to visualize, and obviously people can relate to what is an impairment of an imputation because it's become more and more commonplace in the media, in newspapers, social media, et cetera, where as mine's a little bit more complex than that. And honestly I've got to think off the top of my head in terms of what bones I'm missing. Mine is obviously more complicated than that, but off the top of my head--let's see if I can get it right now. I'm missing my femur, [which is] the top portion of the leg, and I have a small tibia and fibula, which would be--well, normally in your ankle, and that is attached to my hip. So mine's is kind of like--how would I describe it? Probably, like, a leg in reverse. I've got half of it, but it would be the half that you wouldn't expect.Zach: And that's what prompted the amputation, correct?James: No, no. It's more of a--you could say it's a birth defect, but we don't actually know what's the root cause of it, but I coin it as an amputation because it's, be it from the periphery when I have an artificial leg on or a fake leg, however you want to put it, people can relate to that because it's similar to what an amputee would have. So without having to--well, I would say it's a lazy way of describing it, but most people can relate to it. "Well, I know what an amputation visually looks like. I know what looks like in the flesh," and you don't really have to think, where as if I go into explaining my disability, okay, for the people outside of the medical field or should I say within the medical field, they would understand every technical term that's coming out of my mouth, so I probably play it to the layman's terms to be a little bit easier for the general populace.Zach: So can we talk a little bit about--so it's interesting. I've had discussions with people who sometimes they'll frame physical disabilities or just disabilities of any kind as something to conquer and get over as opposed to a part of who you are, right? Can you talk a little bit on how you think about your disability as it comes to you working, as it comes to you just navigating life? Like, do you see it as something to conquer, or do you see it as just part of who you are, as James?James: I think that's a very good question, Zach, because I could come at it from two perspectives now. And you're probably surprised there. I can come from either side of the argument. I think when I have put out content, it's been misconstrued at times how I've put it, be it--what did I put more recently? You could say the disability was adverse. I had a chip on my shoulder and an ax to grind, and I play around with that at times, and I see the funny side of it. But when I use that, and I'll probably go back to a story more specifically. It would probably be when I was a teenager. That I was very--probably trying to, to a certain extent, find myself. I wasn't probably on reflection of--and I think about it at this point in my life, I wasn't content with me as being James. I saw the disability as a hindrance, problemsome... just a pain in the ass, really, because I wanted to be nothing but an able-bodied individual. I wanted nothing but not having this disability, but I think where I kind of had a light-bulb moment, and this kind of continues on from the story, is I was very--how would I put this?--not comfortable with probably my identity. I would want to hide it away. I would wear jeans, trousers, at any moment I could, even when it was hot and I was sweating, and I wouldn't be comfortable outside of a sporting arena, where as on the flip side of that--and it still perplexes me to this day--I would be content to be shown ever-present in a sporting field, but I think that comes down to--it probably helps being a coach because I can identify--it's probably I was content and confident in that arena, but I was still trying to find myself on every aspect of society, be it school, and the outside perspective of what--sport in a sense is a bubble, but I think as I've got older and started probably not to care what people thought of me because at the end of the day you're gonna get people that loathe you and like you just as much, but the people that's gonna like you is for you to be as authentic and genuine that you can be. So once I kind of probably put myself in that position to be vulnerable and only to a certain extent story-tell, I've started to kind of give people the true identity of who I am. I'm not trying to mask the facts of who I am. I'm not trying to be a different person for a different environment, be it I'm a certain way for my friends and family, I'm a different person for obviously teammates, and I'm a different person in my business. I try to encapsulate being, well, one person for all three. It's difficult, but I think I'm getting there. So that question that you asked, Zach, am I comfortable with being James? I think it's taken time to be able to be at one and be at peace with who I am, and this probably comes back to a good question that was asked--not just me, but a different array of people within an amputee group--it kind of asked, "Well, what are you most proudest [of], or what are you most positive about what's happened to you having acquired the amputation or being born with one?" And I put, "Well, mine is slightly different, but if it hadn't been for the disability," well, obviously as we're talking now, this would probably not have happened. My sporting career, for all sakes and purposes, probably wouldn't have happened if I'm honest. Okay, it was an aspiration when I was a young kid to want to be an athlete, but once I got to be a teenager it's like you wanting to either do soccer or play basketball is very unrealistic with having a disability. What path can you take to do--to kind of go down another route and probably progress that way? So from a sense of a Paralympic sport, disability sport, it kind of fell in my lap from that perspective. So to be able to live to no uncertain terms a lifelong dream that I had when I was younger was probably a godsend, I would put it as.Zach: No, I hear you. So can we talk a little bit more about that and talk about the role that, like, sports and physical activity played to help you become more of yourself and how that then transitioned to help you navigate the professional world?James: Absolutely. Coming down to it, I think there is a--very much from what I've learned from sport, and I could probably take away from it [as] my younger self as well is that--and what's transpired into business is--obviously that's what I alluded to with the adversity--is looking at things from a different perspective. Using one--well, a quote that's not really a quote, but somebody was saying to me not too long ago from the RNLI in the UK, [which] I'll say is the Coast Guard, they kind of asked me, "What do you do to survive in terms of if you've got yourself in a spot of bother or in deep, deep water? Cold water?" And I'd seen the advertisement for it, so I knew exactly what they were talking about. So you look to obviously stop and try and relax, where as I think you probably could take a precedent from that--and going back to what I was talking about of me being a young child and my family throwing me into the deep end, obviously that's me, metaphorically speaking, doing exactly that. It's relaxing. It's taking everything on board and not succumbing to problems, difficulties, and to a certain extent becoming overwhelmed and kind of floundering. You start to panic kind of mentally because "I've never been put in this situation. What do I do? Do I kind of push against the current?" And obviously if you start doing that you're gonna be in--you're gonna be in a spot of bother. You're gonna start panicking even more. You need to just relax and wait for things to come. Okay, from a business perspective, patience isn't always a virtue. It's very difficult, because I think we've got into a mentality in the present world now where "I'm not willing to wait for the result. I want it right now," because we're in a society that is fast-moving. "If I don't get it now, I'm gonna be behind my friend down the street, my good friends," and you feel that you're on the back foot from the off, where as I think if you have that mentality of be consistent and look at it from that perspective, as you're in it for the long run as opposed to the sprint and you start to leverage things that way, slowly but surely I think you're gonna be in a better position to be I would call it--not success, because I was talking to Shawn Harper the other day, and he was kind of telling me, "Well, do you want to be successful or do you want to win?" And I think this is where sporting people can find a commonality with winning, because obviously it's black and white. You're either on one side of the coin or you're not. You either win or you lose, where as I think success is to a certain extent manipulated. It's very much what society is dictating is success. Well, what is reality television telling you what it looks like? Be it it's very gimmicky, it's very misrepresented, where as I think if you look at it from the previous, with winning, it's all about you have a common goal. And if I use, like, a business analogy to make the point more clear-cut. Business is talked about as teamwork. Well, that's complete garbage, because why would you want to help somebody succeed in a company where your objective isn't the same? Where as I think you look at it as a more sports-oriented goal [and] everybody's pushing in the same direction. There you go. Now you have actual teamwork because everybody is striving to go in the same direction, be it if we use American football, everybody's on the same page. They're all in it for be it the Super Bowl, the National Championship, where as if you kind of single out individuals in an actual organization, "and I want you to do this, this, this," it's gonna become very cutthroat. It's like, "Well, I don't have the organization's best intentions at heart. I want to do it for me." You get very fixated on yourself as opposed to the success of the organization.Zach: So can we talk a little bit about challenges in being disabled while also being black? Like, you know, have you seen any challenges that you've had to face that are unique to your identity compared to your white counterparts?James: I have to really, really think hard about this one. Not really, but then that's probably glossing over the fact that there is gonna be discrimination, prejudice anyway. I don't have the problem of be it other black individuals within even the UK, be it if they're from African descent, they're gonna be stigmatized from the very get-go by just submitting a CV to an organization because their name per se doesn't fit. I have very much--if you don't see my color of my skin, just seeing some ink on a paper, you would assume that I'm possibly white. So that notion of stigmatization, prejudice, discrimination due to race, I don't think it's possibly being put at my feet. The disability on the other hand? Possibly, but then that's me being speculative and reading between the lines with be it not getting--well, being passed over for job interviews and whatnot, and that's the reason why I went into self-employment. It's like, "Well, if I"m not gonna be able to join the rat race and have a 9-5 job, why don't I go and work for myself?" And it is a brutal reality as that's probably down to the fact that I'm disabled, but a lot of the jobs have been very much sport-related. I'm very much around development of sport. Well, who better than somebody who's been there and done it to be put in that role? So I think it's--without speaking to those individuals it's quite difficult. You can learn how to operate a spreadsheet, you know, making numbers tick over to conform to whatever you want to show to hierarchy that obviously a program is working. We can learn that. I'm young enough to be able to put those steps into practice. But the other thing you can't learn. It's very much, well, God-given. It's something I had to work at and put countless hours in to be successful. So to be passed over for that basis, it's very frustrating because you're thinking, "Well, that's knowledge that I think--" This is probably to a certain extent where I make my point very poignant--I think, coming back to Shawn Harper again, it's where I think the Western world views--well, I'll use the analogy of old people or the elderly and the older population as once they hit retirement age they're kind of worthless, where as from an argument's sake you could probably put that to minorities, people with disabilities, because they fall on the outliers of what is the majority. "Well, you're not productive enough. You're not worthy." It's kind of to a certain extent worthless to the general populace, where as what he said with the people in being the Far East and the Eastern philosophy, they look at it as reproduction. It's their way of giving knowledge back and kind of being, you know, those people who have got wisdom, where as I'm thinking, coming back to my point with me talking about being passed over for jobs because of disability, that's missing a trick I think from that basis of that's me being able to give the athletes that are willing to be able to put in the work and want to get to the next level, be it from a sporting perspective, where they can learn from be it mistakes I've done. "Well, this is what I did. This is what you shouldn't do. You don't need to have those pitfalls and actually have that adversity. You can learn from my mistakes and get that wisdom and kind of piggyback on my attributes and my accomplishments and be able to be a better athlete, where as I think--where I'm gonna come from with that [is] I think maybe organizations gloss over the fact of that.Zach: No, absolutely. So look, this has been a great conversation, and I appreciate you taking the time to, like, hang out with us today. If you had any advice for those who are disabled, what advice would that be?James: I would say be authentic to yourself, because I think be it--in the United States it'd probably be even more problematic--you don't conform to any I'm gonna say quote-unquote box. You're kind of--you're being told you must conform and be to one box, but I think you need to be authentic to yourself, and once you're comfortable with that, I think you're obviously in a better place to be able to respect yourself. And it comes back to--and I think anybody can take heedings from this as well... you can't please everybody. The only person really you need to be pleasing is yourself.Zach: Man, I 100% agree with you. Thank y'all so much. This has been Zach on the Living Corporate podcast. You've been listening to James Roberts, Paralympian, public speaker, coach, and listen, appreciate y'all. Please continue to listen to Living Corporate. We're on every streaming platform. Follow us at Living Corporate @LivingCorp_Pod, Instagram @LivingCorporate. You can just email us at livingcorporatepodcast@gmail.com. If you have any questions you'd like to reach out to the show, hit us up right there or check out the website at living-corporate.com, please say the dash. Again, this has been Zach. Peace.

Zach sits down with Alicia Wade, a results-driven leader who works as a district manager at Banana Republic, to speak about black female leadership. Alicia shares her career journey with us and offers some advice for young black and brown women entering the professional space. She and Zach also discuss the concept of proactive feedback and how to effectively solicit it at work.Alicia is the CEO of The HR Source - check it out!Connect with Alicia on LinkedIn and Twitter!TRANSCRIPTZach: What's up, y'all? It's Zach with Living Corporate. Now, listen, you know what we do. We come to y'all and we bring to y'all, you know, some type of, you know, fire for your head top, right? We have some type of creative, executive leader, public servant, you know, public speaker, educator, entrepreneur, artist. You know, we have somebody, typically of the, you know, melanated variety, but sometimes not. Sometimes we've got some Winter Soldiers, or some Buckys, if you will. Some aspirational allies. But we're having real conversations that center black and brown experiences, and today is no different. Today we have the Alicia Wade. [air horns sfx] Now, listen here, for those who don't know, Alicia Wade actually was one of my first bosses. I'ma say bosses 'cause she is a boss, but she was one of the first people at my first job, when I worked at Target, that was in a leadership position that I had ever seen a black person in a leadership position--actually, the first time I had ever seen a black woman in a leadership position. But I don't want to go ahead and take away from her thunder, so I'ma go ahead and introduce her right now. Alicia, welcome to the show. How are you doing?Alicia: I am amazing. How are you doing today?Zach: I'm doing really, really well. Now, look, I gave a very, like, non-intro intro for you, so why don't you go ahead and tell us a little bit about yourself?Alicia: Okay. Where do you want me to start? 1980? [laughs]Zach: You know what? 1980 would not be that bad. Was it the day time or was it late at night?Alicia: It was the morning in the spring.Zach: Okay, okay.Alicia: Yes, for sure. [laughs] But no, I was--you know, I started--you know, to your point around starting as a boss, I really wasn't always a boss. Maybe bossy, but for sure. You know, I--kind of just giving a background of education and then really where I started my career, but, you know, I went to the University of Oklahoma, so I have to shout that out because, you know, the amazing Boomer Sooner, and I actually did--Zach: Okay, okay.Alicia: Yeah, my undergrad degree there, political science, communication, and then went straight to grad school. So for me I share that background because I just really, you know, was one of those black girls that had a list. I knew what I was gonna be. If you asked me when I was growing up, I just knew I was gonna be a lawyer, and then all that changed when I went to school and I was like, "I don't really wanna go to school for, like, three more years and, like, read and do all of that." So I went to grad school at Baldwin-Wallace. It's actually a university now. It was a college then. It is in Berea, Ohio. Do you know where Berea is?Zach: No, where is that?Alicia: So it is actually, you know, the campgrounds for the Cleveland Browns. So it is right outside of Cleveland in Ohio.Zach: Oh, okay, okay.Alicia: Yes, so if you fly into Cleveland, you're technically in Berea. So I was there, I did my MBA there, and I think through that journey I really realized that I had just a knack for wanting to be on teams, obviously being a student athlete and an athlete my whole life. I think that's really where I kind of moved into HR. So starting to your point around being one of your first bosses, I actually started with Target in their training program and did several roles there. So I had an opportunity to be at the store level, district and regional level in HR, and then actually--I was actually there for about 9 years and then moved onto Ross Dress for Less in an HR capacity and did that and then moved over to operations and did that for probably--well, how long when I was in operations there? For two years. So the total time I was there for 5 years, if you're following, and then now--Zach: I am.Alicia: Yeah. And then now currently I'm actually with Gap, Inc., with the Banana Republic division ["ow" sfx] as a district manager. So yeah, that's kind of where I am now.Zach: So that's incredible, and it's interesting. So today we're really talking about black female leadership, right? So you talked about this path that you went on, and then there were points in time where you kind of had to pivot, right? 'Cause you had this very clear plan. Can we talk about, like, what was the cause--what was the cause, like, for you to say, "Look, I don't want to do this particularly." 'Cause you said that you were drawn to being on teams, but, you know, you can be a team and still be a lawyer. So, like, what was the moment that made you say, "You know what? I need to do something different."?Alicia: Well, you know what? I think what I realized in being on teams is that, you know, kind of--I mean, I probably wouldn't say I had the words for it then or the language or even had done the discovery for my own, like, strength and [?] of what that really was, but I did realize that I was really good at making other people better. So to your point, being a track athlete. It could be, like, individual, right? You could do your thing and then also [?] relays, but I felt like at that point I did know that I was really good around motivating other people and that I had an energy that other people fed off of, and I don't know if that was necessarily--would have been [conveyed?] for me. Some people would have through a book or through research. So I just felt like, you know, that leadership role, I was always pushed in those roles. So, like, even when I was at OU, I was a black student president. I was in leadership roles through my sorority, Alpha Kappa Alpha. If you have sound effects, it would be a good time to add that right there.Zach: You want, like, a skee-wee or something? I don't have anything like that. Aren't y'all--wait, y'all be suing people. I'm not messing with you on this. [both laugh]Alicia: It could just be an amazing, like, "Alpha! Kappa! Alpha!" So anyway--[both laugh]--you heard that? Like, that little echo? It was amazing.Zach: I did.Alicia: Yes, and you had a picture in your mind of it being magnified, right? [Zach laughing] But we digress. So, you know, through those experiences in college, I think that's where that discovery came for me.Zach: Okay. Okay, cool. No, no, no. Listen, I'ma tell you something, 'cause y'all do be suing people, 'cause I saw somebody was making a joke--somebody made a joke about Kamala Harris and they put that AKA symbol on there, and it was on Twitter, and all the reactions on Twitter was [Law and Order sfx]. I said, "Wait a second. Relax, everybody." [Alicia laughing]Alicia: Well, you know what? Well, at least that sound effects knows--I think all of us through our childhood know that something epic was about to happen. So at the very least it's like, "Wait a minute," and we got their attention, right? And we're compliant. We're compliant, so we're good.Zach: [ow sfx, laughing] All right, so let's talk about this, because you're--when you talk about the roles that you've had and kind of going through the leader--you went through a training program, right? So you went through, like, an actual development program when you started at Target. Can we talk a little bit about what are some of the core things you learned through that program and what are some pieces that you feel like you picked up through that program that you wouldn't have otherwise?Alicia: Oh, my gosh. You know, it was so interesting. I talked--it's funny, you know, looking at what you do now, right, and where I am, and how that all started there, right? And I see that a lot. So I talk to a lot of peers that are in so many different capacities now in their career, and we all talk about the commonality with this, right? So I think for me--the good part is when you work for a company that has very structured development, or I should say an expectation that a supervisor shows up a certain way. Even if somebody doesn't have the capability or even the want to do it, it happens. So with that being said, I didn't always have supervisors that were able to show up in that way for me, but I would say the biggest thing I've learned, and it's a life lesson, is how I manage my expectations of other people, right? And I share that because I hear that a lot, especially as I even mentor, you know, younger, to your point, black and brown people today. If they're entering to the workforce and they have this expectation because of someone's title or their age or, you know, maybe their past experiences, and when they don't get that they are very discouraged. So that was a big lesson for me because I just came in and--you know, being from Houston, I think, you know, when you think about, like, a Southern culture, you really, you know, have a lot of respect, you know, for people. So I was like, "Yes, ma'am," "No, sir," and then when I realized people didn't show up very professional in some cases, I had to--to your point through this program--really position myself to not let that be a distraction, and I share that background because I think one of the biggest things that I had to learn, particularly around communication, is I showed up very rigid in a lot of those environments, whether it was, you know, day-to-day, whether it was in a mixer or things--and there was a lot of promotional opportunities that passed me because people just didn't know who I was, you know? It was just kind of like--you know, it was--I showed up in the workplace thinking, "You just don't share those kind of things," right? Like, they don't need to know what I do at home. And people wanted to, and it was important. So it's interesting, even as you do the intro today to say I was the first person that you saw, right? A person of color that related to you. That was a journey for me to get there, to realize that, and that was a big learning. And even today, you know? Like, obviously with Coco, you know, in the tennis championships now and seeing her and all this conversation about how animated she is, and, you know, just--it's so raw. Like, that is kind of how I showed up, you know what I mean? And being an athlete, being an aggressive, being this--and that didn't always translate into positive for me. [laughs]Zach: No, no, I hear you. But this is the thing about that though, right? I think that we've also been--so I'ma speak for myself, and I've also seen, like, my peers, is black folks, you know, it's--there's a certain level of guardedness that we're taught to have just because, like, you know, "Look, there's only a few of us. Don't mess anything up. Don't put yourself out there too far." And I also think culturally we just have this thing around, like, sharing our personal business in ways that, like--there are things we just don't talk about at work, you know what I'm saying? And so there's this--but to your point though, there's this challenge of, like, "Okay, well, what's the line? How vulnerable can you make yourself?" Because people aren't gonna want to promote or work with somebody that they don't know. Like, most people anyway. I don't--I don't care. Listen, I just want to do the job. It's fine. But I'm learning, and I've learned, that, you know, people just feel more comfortable if they know you a little bit. And so my question is how did you create that cocktail for yourself? Like, how did you come into--you know, what is it that I really want to share? What will I still kind of hold back? Like, how did you kind of give yourself permission to be a bit more vulnerable at your job?Alicia: Yeah, for sure. So I can think of a couple of things. So I can think of an experience where I was actually interviewing, and I was pregnant at the time, and we were doing, like, a Skype, like, interview, because, you know, the actual people that were doing the mock interviews were in other locations, and it was an African-American female. She was in a supervisor position. And we're going through, and I'm thinking--and I share this story often--like, you know, I'm prepared. I've got all my notes. And the message I was trying to convey was someone who was reliable, right, and qualified. So I had all of that to the--you know, bringing that to the table, and I just remember her, like, cutting me off mid-sentence. Like, ugh. Who are you? I'm not feeling you right now, and you need to get it together. And, like, inside--you know, like, we all--we've done so much, particularly as African-American females, to pull it all together and present this package, and when someone is unraveling that it's like, "Wait a minute," right? And that's what happened in that moment for me. But to your point around creating that cocktail, that, like, having her say it's okay and seeing her show up as herself and still be professional, you know, and great at her job, like it wasn't this caricature, right? She was herself. She was professional. She was someone I looked up to, and she was still herself. She didn't become anybody else. It helped give me that courage. But I think for me, like, the steps towards that was me finding things that I was okay to share, right? Like, so to kind of, like, put a little, like, pinky toe in the water. So it's like, "Okay, I like to work out," you know? "So let me talk about that, and then maybe I'll build a connection," and then I just continued to build upon that, about things that, you know, I feel comfortable with, but then I think I learned in that is that that's what motivates people. And then I thought about--I made it personal. Like, I want to know what's important to my boss, right? Like, I want to know them as a person, and then when I started to meet with people and I started to, you know, move up in my career in multi-unit positions and interacted, to your point, at so many different levels with people, I was able to meet people at their level and then also connect at that level.Zach: So then what advice would you have, right, for the young black woman, young brown woman, coming into the professional space who does have it all together? 'Cause you're absolutely right, like, there is--and I believe this translates to black men as well. Like, you know, we try to come with, like, "Look, I got this, I got this. I'm tight. Like, I've got all of these different things. If they ask me this, I'ma say that. If they ask me this, I'ma say that." When you don't have someone who is gonna kind of give you the assurance that it's okay to be yourself and who isn't maybe, you know, guiding you along, what advice would you give to someone who is trying to break out of their shell a little bit?Alicia: Yeah. You know what? I would share--I guess this is where, like, the academic in me comes out, because I also teach at the University of Houston. So it's a great opportunity [ow sfx] as an adjunct professor--aye, let's go. I [?] from OU to our great Cougars here. Zach: To UH. Uh.Alicia: Yes, there we go. H-Town in the house. [both laugh] But one of the things that I share there with the students all of the time is around, like, the dialogue, right? And you have internal dialogue in yourself that you're having, and you can get distracted about maybe, you know, cues that you're not getting from people, right? So even in this conversation, there's things that you're doing that are affirming me that we're on track, right? And vice versa, and sometimes we don't get that, not because we're wrong--it's because you may be the first person that this, you know, particular person has interacted with like you, if that makes sense, right? So just because you may be sharing, right, about whatever that may be that's very personal or maybe you think is cultural and they're looking at you a certain way, that doesn't mean that that's wrong, right? Or that you shouldn't share it. It just may be a new experience, and you can't let those external things go along. Then it starts to spiral and you're not showing up as your authentic self. So I think you have to get to a place where "Hey, this is who I am," you know? And continue to show up that way, because any time I feel like you're--you feel like you are a fraud or you are trying to act like other people, you're never gonna come across as someone that other people want to be around anyway - in my opinion. So that would be my advice.Zach: No, you're absolutely right. Now, you know, you talked a little bit about your sorority, but, you know, everybody, Alicia, is not blessed to don the pink and green and wear the pearls and toss the [?] hair, right? Everybody don't have a community that they come into. So for the folks that are kind of doing [?], what does it look like--what would you suggest that they do to kind of build those networks in those kind of, like, trusted spaces?Alicia: Absolutely, and I think that is definitely something along the journey that I had to learn, even though I was in those environments, because no one in my family really has worked--like, most of--particularly the women are in education, right, and I was kind of brought up that if you weren't a teacher or a nurse, what do you do? Right? So I totally can relate to someone who maybe is not even able to go home or, especially as a new professional, being able to talk to your parents about your experiences, but I would say you have to be very intentional around finding--and not necessarily somebody that looks like you, but maybe they are--whether it's a position or they have the characteristics that you want to possess, that could be a star for you. I think the other piece is maybe somebody that's maybe struggling in the same area as you are, right? So let's say you see someone that is in a position that you want to be in, and let's say communication is your opportunity--it's, like, you're not necessarily the most articulate person, right, but you aspire to do, but you see that person is maybe in a certain role, connecting with them to ask, like, how did they work around that, right? And maybe you don't feel comfortable going straight to them. Maybe you're in an environment that that's not appropriate and you don't have that access to that person, but what events can you go to, right? Like, can you be intentional to say, "Hey, my work schedule doesn't necessarily afford me to do A, B, and C, but there is this networking opportunity at this time through my church," right? Look around you, and I think if you approach it, your development or an area of growth around the abundance as opposed to the limitations, you will find somebody that is gonna be willing to help you or even--they may not even realize they're helping you and you know you're going with that very intentional question and they can answer it for you and you get that nugget, right? [ow sfx] And then you just start believing it. Yes.Zach: No, you're absolutely right. And you know what? I just--I appreciate this because, you know, it's about being resourceful, right? Like, you've got to reach out and use and just think beyond, you know, your initial, you know, four corners or whatever and just reach out a bit, because there are resources available. You've got Google, which is, like, this huge thing where you can, like, type in things into this, like, little square, and then when you press Enter then a bunch of things pop up. You know, there's just all types of resources out there, so you gotta get busy. You gotta get out there.Alicia: Right. But I think to your exact question, even though we have so much information, people are not necessarily more informed per se about specific things when it comes to their career, and I challenge people, particularly to your point minorities a lot and people in my circle where, you know what, their Instagram is popping, their Facebook, like, you have all the great pictures, angles, but then you don't have a LinkedIn account or you don't have an updated resume or you don't have a CV. So it's like you've invested all of this time of creating and crafting this image but not necessarily the same for your professional, right?Zach: Wait a minute. [Flex bomb sfx] What you talking about? You're dropping these bombs over here talking about--so wait a second though, and I know you're church, so you're over here talking about "so you've crafted this image."Alicia: Yes, Jesus. We've got one of them anointed words right there, right? Yes, hallelujah. Zach: "But it's not real!" Then part of me, I was like ["and i oop" sfx]. You know what I'm saying? I was like, "Oh, my gosh." Like, that's real though. Alicia: Yes, wave your hands in there.Zach: No, that's true though.Alicia: Yes, it is, and it's just--recently I had a mentee that I was talking to, and she was preparing for an interview, but she'd post every day on, like, her Insta story, right? Like, videos. She looks beautiful in these videos. And I said, "Well, why don't you use something you do every day?" Like, you want to convey this message. Like, have you ever looked at yourself when you're trying to talk about your career? And she's like, "I never thought about that," and I said, "Well, you clearly like looking at yourself, right? So why don't you start there?" Like, it is around you. So that's what I would say. I think it's kind of step back, realize what you do have, and just start somewhere small, right? Like, it doesn't have to be a program that costs thousands of dollars. It doesn't have to be dropping the name of, you know, this person is my mentor or, you know, they have this title. It really may be the secretary in, you know, your particular office that is someone that is warm, that may be older than you that can give you some advice around navigating that environment that you can learn from at the level you're at right now.Zach: No, I love that. 100%. And I'm curious, you know, we talked a little bit about--again, we started off talking about leadership, and we talked about you coming into yourself. So that was self-management. Let's talk about what does it look like for you to manage others. Particularly what I'd like to talk about is, like, the art of influence, as well as really giving effective feedback. So you and I both--well, so you started at Target, I also started at Target, and I think a large part of the element of Target, the culture at the time was really about, like, you know, positive feedback, public praise, and I've seen that you've carried that forward in your positions with Gap, specifically Banana Republic, and how you give feedback. So can we talk a little bit about that and, like, your theory or your philosophy around feedback and, like, your practices on how you give it to your team?Alicia: Yeah, for sure. You know, I think feedback is something that I value, and I think it starts--you know, my brother and I talk about this all the time because he plays sports, actually football, and is currently still in the field with athletics, and we talk about how that shows up in the workplace of people that are used to being coached, right? Like, you're used to looking at a video and a group of people sitting around critiquing it, right? And really understanding that there's a moment that you have to capture right now. Like, you don't have another day or a week to wait. So I think that kind of shaped my philosophy per se, if there is one, is that you have to [?] find and be aware as a boss, right, or a manager of those coachable moments and not wait. You know, I think we've all been in situations where somebody sat us down and they had a list, and you think, like, "Wow." You know, like, all of these things that they're telling you that you need to get better at, or examples, and you're sitting there, and at a point you just look around like, "Wow, why didn't they tell me then?" Like, "I had no clue," right? So I think that's what I never want to be as a supervisor. I never want somebody to be shocked, right? And I also want them to know, like, "I'm giving you this feedback because I believe you can improve," right? 'Cause I think a lot of times, particularly--if I bring this to your point of our audience here of, like, black and brown people, particularly for black women, when I mentor them there's a lot of times the absence of feedback means that there's an absence of a problem. "Oh. Well, nobody told me that." It's like, "That does not mean that you didn't need to get better." And I think--I share that because the next part of it is, even in my self-journey and things like that or my own development, there's a lot of times I would get feedback and I would want to make it about the other person. Like, "Well, if they just got to know me, then they would know that's not really how I am." Like, "I'm not really like that," right? Or "If they gave me a chance to do it, then they would just know," opposed to thinking, "No, we're talking about this specific instance."Zach: Right now.Alicia: "Right now. Can you understand how you're showing up, how it could be--just the possibility of how it could be perceived this way?" And in that space, what can you control and move forward with? So I think with my team, I try to make sure that I create that--like, we create that as an agreed-upon communication from the beginning, right? Like, so they're not shocked, 'cause I don't want to assume that you've gotten this before, right? And I want you to also understand my intent. So we talked about in the beginning, like, "Hey, here's how I communicate. Here's what I do, and let me know if that works for you," and a lot of times I found that people don't really know how they like to get feedback until they get it. [laughs] 'Cause it's like, "Actually, I don't really want--" You know, they think that they don't like it or it's gonna be odd or it's, like, gonna be breaking them down, and then once they realize, like, this is gonna be a feedback-rich environment, then I think people buy in, but I also feel like it's a great way--I'm in a, you know, environment particularly in retail that moves very fast, right? And it is very results-driven. So if you are in an environment where productivity or--it's high-functioning, then I think it's very rewarding. I am aware that there are environments, right, like, when I go into, like, an educational space, where it's not as frequent, right? And you don't have--it's like an event when you get feedback. I think you really have to meet the person where they are, and I think you have to make sure that they understand where it's coming from, and that's my thoughts about it. Zach: No, I love that. And, you know, this is the thing, because--you know, background and upbringing is all very important, because I would just--for me, it was primarily my mom and I growing up, and my mom would just tell me all of the time, like, you know, "Hey, you need to do this better. You need to change da-da-da-da." Like, "You need to clean it up, boy. You're looking crazy out here." So it's not--it wasn't odd to me to get, like, direct feedback at work. I think it was reinforced by Target too 'cause Target was such a feedback--and I think retail is like that in general, as an industry, right? Because, like you said, it's results-driven, it's very action-oriented, and it's execution-focused and execution-oriented that you're gonna have to get this feedback 'cause we gotta get this stuff done, and so what has been a challenge for me though, Alicia, has been, like, transitioning outside of retail and just realizing, like, the--I don't know, like, just the fragility of folks. So, like, have you ever had a situation as a black person, as a black woman, giving feedback to a non-black person, and they, like, crumble like you've just destroyed them?Alicia: I have, yeah.Zach: Okay. Can we talk about it?Alicia: Yeah. You know, I can think of several. You know, there's one that's coming up, like, top of mind, but I probably would say it's pretty common, and this is how it happened. And to your point, you know, the person reacted very emotionally, and in that moment I had to pause and ask, like, "What are these tears about right now? Because what I'm saying shouldn't be causing tears," right? Like, I'm sharing an observation about something we already have--you know, sometimes you may have something that's very specific, right, that you can measure it, but I also find, particularly in being in the HR space, right, that it's very hard to coach people or for people to give feedback on something they can't measure. So to your point, you start having this very what feels like abstract conversation, like "What are we really talking about?" And then the person can become defensive if you don't have measurables to say, "Hey, look. See, this is what I mean." And in that particular conversation, that's what the person was--I would use the word argued. Maybe argued is not the right word, but they were, you know, disagreeing, right? Like, "Well, I don't see it that way," and I think we had to disagree in that space of "It is okay for you not to agree. However, what we have to agree upon is that you do have to value my opinion as your supervisor," right? "And let's also agree that we don't have to." Right? Like, we can be in this space and see this totally different--Zach: And it still be okay.Alicia: And it still be okay, you know? And I'm not asking you to change your perspective. I'm just putting you on notice, right, like, that this is the way that it looks to me and this is how I would like us to move forward, and in this particular conversation, the person was not ready to talk about the path forward. They weren't, because they were still stuck and just kind of thinking around, and I think you have to know, like, not to overbear--you know what I mean? Like, be overbearing.Zach: Yeah, overwhelming.Alicia: Yeah, overwhelming, 'cause this may be truly--regardless of their age, regardless of the position that they're in, this may be the first time that they've heard this, and you have to respect that, right? So to your point, you've grown up being told, like, "You're not all that. Okay, no, you need to go change," or, like, "Ugh," and that's not something that's crumbling for you, right? But someone that's never gotten honest feedback from someone that loves them, you don't know what that background is in the workplace, right? So somebody shows--Zach: That's real.Alicia: You know, somebody shows up, and then once again going back to that us being comfortable, right, and us being--like, you can't take that as that you did something wrong, because now you can retreat and not be operating in a space that you need to. So yeah, I've absolutely had that, and, you know, what I've done for me is that follow-up is really important. So comment back, like, "Let's agree upon a time on when it'll be good to revisit this," 'cause I find a lot of times for certain people avoidance is a tactic that they use, right, when it comes to conflict, and that's the most ineffective thing that you can do, right? Like, time does not cure all, right? In fact, it makes it worse, because we had this conversation 6 months ago and we still said nothing, right? Or that was last year during your annual review that we talked about it, or as a peer we worked on this project together, but that was--we only do that once a quarter, right? And I didn't really like working with you, and you had an attitude, or you were late, or I didn't really like the quality of your work, but we never really got to the root cause for us to move forward. So I come back to "Okay, you know, last time we spoke this is where we landed. How are you feeling today?" You know? And not let people off the hook with making it about you.Zach: You know, that's just a really good point. That last part is huge, because it is easy for me--'cause I'm a bit of a narcissist, so--[both laugh] Alicia: It's something you--right, but you can internalize it, right? Zach: Right, absolutely. Like, and so it's like, "Okay, well, then, clearly this is something I did wrong. Okay, how can I improve?" And, like, you know, a part of you thinks, like, "Oh, well, this is me being accountable." It's like, "Yeah, but you're being accountable at a toxic--at a point that's not even accurate or helpful," because you're centering yourself and internalizing to the point that we're not actually getting to a solution, you know what I mean?Alicia: Yeah. But I think too to your point around accountability, and this is something that I've, you know, from a learning--you know, to your question initially, that's an area where, like, accountability overused has gotten in the way, right, for me of, like, working too much or, you know, it could come across as aggressive, or--you know, those things, and you're really overly accountable, and I think that's where understanding what accountability and responsibility looks like, right? So you may be in that environment. You're accountable for whatever that project, and that's why you're giving this feedback, but that person is responsible as well, you know, to show up a certain way or deliver in those areas, and how do you balance that, you know, so it doesn't--like, obviously you gotta work on, maybe in that space, what you need to do, but there's also something that they needed to work on, and we can't be distracted about how it came across to them, per se.Zach: No, you're absolutely right, and you're right, like, we do overuse that word, and, you know, I think--again, like, it's an old phrase, but, like, accountability is a two-way street. Like, it's not--because if one person is always accountable and the other person is never accountable, then that's--that's toxic. Like, that doesn't make sense.Alicia: Yes, and I think if you become--like, especially when we think about giving feedback, right, and we're thinking about whether that's from a generational or we think about from a cultural standpoint, we have to make sure that that's a two-way street, and if you're the only person trying to work through this relationship, then you really aren't growing in how to manage and work with people that don't look like you.Zach: You know, I just--[straight up sfx] I mean, you're right. What can I say?Alicia: Hol' up! [both laugh]Zach: Man. Okay, so this has been a great conversation. So, you know, there are times for me where--you talked earlier about, like, people giving you feedback and, like, sitting you down with a laundry list of feedback. We also just talked about accountability and responsibility. For me, I really enjoy the idea of soliciting feedback, because I'm trying to--like, you know, in the idea of you trying to sit me down and have some laundry list of stuff, I'm just over here like ["stupid, i'm not gonna let you get the chance" sfx] You know what I'm saying? I'm just trying to, like, make sure I'm proactive, okay? Alicia: [both laughing] Right, right. Like it's above me now, right?Zach: Listen. Okay, so my question to you is what are your thoughts on proactive feedback? And what are ways that you solicit feedback from your team and from your leadership?Alicia: Yeah. So this is--oh, my gosh, this is definitely a gem for me when I think about just development for myself. I think I've been in situations where I've had supervisors that weren't able to give me feedback, right, because I was meeting goals, I was doing a really good job, and it was meeting their expectations, right? So you go and you ask and you solicit and it's like, "Oh, it's great." Like, "There's nothing you can do better," and that's never worked for me, you know? And maybe because the way that I'm wired, you know? Like, I really want to even get feedback around, like, what did you like? Like, what am I doing well so I can know what to repeat, right? Or even how I got the result, and I find often that people may achieve a goal, right, or whatever it may be, and it's kind of like, "Okay, we're so excited," but they cannot articulate how, right? And for me I feel like that's kind of--there's a silver bullet or a magic sauce, a cocktail, right, that you're creating on how to repeat success. You have to know what you did, right? Because it may be a different environment. So for me, that's really important for personal feedback for me, whether it be from a supervisor, a peer, or even my direct reports. Like, if we feel like we're in a good space, right--and I would start with direct reports--that I manage, I want to know what you like, right? So if you feel like, "Hey, communication is great," I want them to be very specific, but that's just how I'm wired, right? Like, I want to know - do you prefer this type of communication? Do you prefer this type of recognition? Okay, when we're working on a project, what level of autonomy do you like? So I ask, you know? I think there's some people that it's really easy for them and those that aren't, so I'll set it up. If we're gonna have, for instance, a touch-base, or we know we're gonna have a formal sitting down, [I] say, "Hey, when we connect, I want to give some feedback on how that went," and I'll put it out there, right, whether that's in a conversation or even written, for them to prepare their thoughts. So that's something that's worked for me. I think with peers, I have something that's helped me, particularly around communication and working on how I come across, 'cause that was something early in my career and I think still today. Like, my non-verbals. You know, like, that face? Like, okay. Like, having somebody in the room, you know, or your tone to say, "Okay, hey, you know, yeah, you did come across this way." I've always tried to solicit people that can help me in that area, and if they aren't there someone that I've seen that is an expert in the area or better than me. I go to them to say, "Hey, do you mind if I reach out to you, like, once a month just to get your ideas? It doesn't have to be long. Would it be okay if I maybe text you or shoot this over to you and you give me some feedback?" That's really helped also break down, you know, some barriers where--I don't want to say competition per se, right, but it's helped people also give [me] more feedback that maybe they wouldn't before, right? Because I've already put out there, "Hey, I'm trying to get better here. You've already got this locked down. I'm trying to learn. Do you mind if I just--you know, if I send this to you and ask questions?" Most people are gonna be very open. So that's something that I do a lot, and that's how I would say I solicit feedback or try to.Zach: No, that's--no, no, no, that's great, and I think, again, to your point around, like, "Well, no one told me anything so it must be fine," it's like the only time that I--the only time I take that attitude where "nobody told me anything, it must be fine" is if I ask you for feedback and you say, "I don't have any feedback," and then you come back later with something, then I'm like, "Hey, wait a second. You big buggin' now."Alicia: And you know what? Here's one thing. And, you know, I think we learn a lot from also bad supervisors or people we didn't like working for, and that was one. I had a supervisor that comes to mind, and that's--this is why I would say I take the approach now, because she didn't necessarily know what she wanted things to look like, but she did--she was very good at critiquing what you put forward, and that was SO demotivating for me. In fact, it was--like, it was emotional, you know what I mean? Like, I would just be, like, hurt by it, because it was like--to your point--I went to you, asked you for feedback--"Hey, here's my plan. This is what I'm thinking. This is the approach I want to take." And they would be like, "Oh, yeah. Check, check. Great." And then I [?]--you know, I felt [I?] was taking huge leaps or a risk in some cases, right, and we agreed upon this is what we were gonna do going forward, and then she would come back if maybe there were other partners that felt a certain way or it didn't resonate with them or she saw it and then would, like, kind of break me down, you know what I mean? That list would come out of "Okay, well, you could've did this, and you could've did that," and in that--at that time, I shut down. You know? So it became--I won't say angry, but the hurt became--I just took a list, and then I thought, "I'm never gonna do that again," and that didn't help anybody, particularly me. So I think that's when I--to your point, trying to get ahead of it now, like, not letting somebody that says, "Oh, I don't have anything to share," get in the way--get in the way of me moving forward.Zach: No, you're 100% right, and I think--so it's both and, right? It's you were looking for the feedback. You were soliciting it, and then you--not using that as a blocker, right? No matter what you get. So if you don't get anything, don't use it as a blocker. If you get something that doesn't really align with what you think it is, then don't use it as a blocker either. Just make sure that it's something that you're taking the time to do, but it shouldn't impede you from moving forward towards whatever goals that you have. I think--like, a mentor that I have who--she's told me this a few different times. Shout-out to you, Liz. I see you. What's up?Alicia: Hey.Zach: Hey. Come on. So Liz was like "Look--" And Liz is a mentor of mine. She's a great friend, and she was also on the show a few episodes back, actually during Pride Month, but anyway, so look. Liz said--she said, "Look, Zach, you know, the beauty of feedback is you don't have to agree with it. You don't have to take all of it." Alicia: [laughs] Right.Zach: She was like, "You know, Zach, I think you're burdening yourself with every time someone gives you feedback, you take that as, like, a mandate that you need to change something." Like, that's not--that's not what feedback is. Feedback is something for you to consider. So the best thing you can say to someone giving you feedback? "Hey, thank you for your feedback." That's it. [laughs] That's it.Alicia: For sure, and that's so important to your point. It's like, there's--if you can compartmentalize things, right, then you can do something with it later, because that feedback may be relevant at another time, and then you can see it, right? When it shows up again, but today I don't necessarily have to create a plan based on what you said. I can just put there and say, "Oh, okay. That's Zach's feedback that he gave me today. Okay. All right. Hm. I don't necessarily see it, but thank you." And it stays right there. Yeah, I think that's awesome.Zach: And that's it. But I think some of the challenge when it comes to just, like, bias in the workplace, and, like, there's also, like, this underlying and sometimes overlying expectation that women, particularly black women, are just, like, the workhorses of whatever. So, you know, sometimes I've been told--you tell me if I'm right or wrong, but, like, sometimes people give you feedback with the expectation that you're just gonna do what they say, and it's like... that's not necessarily the case. Like, I'm just gonna take this feedback, and I will--I will make a determination as to how, or if, I implement it into what I'm doing.Alicia: Yes, for sure. I think--no, I agree, I think that is true for me and what I've seen. And even more, to take it a step further--'cause I know we've talked through a lot of tips on this podcast around, you know, how--you know, interviewing tips and moving forward, right? I see this a lot in interviewing people and them not being able to explain why they haven't moved forward, right? They feel like it's someone else's--you know, someone else's... I don't know even the word. Like, it's their responsibility or their fault. We'll use the word fault, right? Of "Okay, I'm here," and they can't say why, and to me it's like, "Okay, you've never gotten any feedback or no one's ever told you or you're not able to look at this job or see someone in that role and see what they do better than you and what--maybe even the one thing they do better than you--and what's held you back?" And that's the approach I take for feedback. Like, if you can think about it in that way opposed to, to your point, something that you have to change or take on or feel like you've got to bow down or become someone different, but really as a lens for you to see things that you may not be seeing. So that's what I see often, particularly for black women.Zach: Man, this has been great. Alicia, before we let you go, any parting words or shout-outs?Alicia: Shout--I mean, when you say let you go, I feel like we've got to queue that Beyonce, and that has to be in the background that we have here, but--Zach: Again, I don't know what you don't understand about [Law and Order sfx]. We can't do that. I don't own Roc-a-Fella or whoever she--or whatever she signed that thing through, or House of Dereon, LLC. I don't know. Listen, we're gonna have that nice, you know what I'm saying, copyright-free jazz music that you hear in the background. Trying to get us in trouble. We already said AKA a few times. They're gonna be knocking on my door. Now you're talking about--Alicia: No, they're not. They're gonna be looking at this. We're gonna be--they're gonna be helping with [?] mass media, passing it out here. But no, seriously--Zach: Come on, now.Alicia: You know what I mean? But no, seriously, I want to--you know, if there's a recognition, I want to recognize you, because I think, you know, creating this space, A. to have conversation, is one thing, right? But I think you being very intentional around making sure that the conversation has different perspectives, whether that be from industry, you know, whatever, right? I think that this is just very phenomenal, and I've seen, like I've said, from the beginning when you first sent out this podcast to where you are now. So I just want to, you know, tip my hat to you, brother, and really seeing how you brought also other people in to expand--it's just fantastic. While keeping your full-time job. So round of applause. I'm super excited and just happy to be a part [kids cheering sfx]--yes. So anything, you know, that we can do in the future, any way I can continue to add to the conversation, would be the shout-out. So thank you as well. Zach: Oh, my goodness. Well, first of all, you've got me blushing. I'm turning purple. I appreciate this. And you know what? Shout-out to you, okay? 'Cause, like I said, you were one of the first people, and, you know, the thing about it--see, the thing about Alicia--now, look, I know we have this natural hair movement now and everything. Let me tell you something. Back in, like, 2011, I walked into Target doing my thing, Alicia came through edges LAID, okay?Alicia: All the time.Zach: Okay? Pearls. Pearls thick, y'all. Don't play. And she had heels on, and she was moving. She was working the floor. I was like, "Oh, my gosh. This is incredible." So shout-out to Alicia and your whole brand, everything that you do, everything that you've done. Shout-out to of course, you know what I'm saying, 1906, you know what I'm saying? I got y'all. Pink and green. I respect y'all. Please do not come for my neck. Please. I appreciate y'all. I did not put no logos on this stuff. Alicia: There will be a logo though, in the show notes.Zach: Oh, my gosh. Okay, yes, so we will put a logo in the show notes. It will show all of the legal information and that we are not indemnified by anything--[both laugh]Alicia: You are so silly, for sure.Zach: [laughs] Okay, but look, final air horns for you--[air horns sfx]--and you know what? This has been it, y'all. Thank y'all for listening to the Living Corporate podcast. Of course this has been Zach. You've been listening to Alicia Wade. Now, look, I usually say all of the little Twitter stuff, but look, we brolic now, okay? So I don't have to say "follow us on this." Just Google Living Corporate, okay? Google me. What was that--oh, yeah, Teyana Taylor I think made that song called Google Me. But no, for real, shout-out to Teyana Taylor too, but look, Google me. Just Google Living Corporate. Living--L-I-V-I-N-G--Corporate. I'm not gonna spell out corporate. I don't have the time. But check us out. We're everywhere. Appreciate y'all. We'll talk to y'all soon. Peace.

Zach speaks with the founder and CEO of MINWO, Melanie Akwule, about effectively supporting women, specifically black and brown women, in the workplace. Melanie shares her experience as a black woman in corporate America and talks about MINWO's origin and its vision. She also offers up three points of advice for women of color who are looking to get into entrepreneurship and a whole lot more.Check out MINWO and connect with them on social media! LinkedIn, Twitter, IG, FacebookVisit Melanie's personal page and network with her on LinkedIn!Stop by our website!TRANSCRIPTZach: What's up, y'all? It's Zach with Living Corporate, and yes, you're listening to a what? Not a C-Side, not a D-Side, but a B-Side. Now listen, it's 2019, so some of y'all don't even know, like, the reference of a B-Side, but, like, there was a point in time where, like, you know, musical content was on tapes and records, right? And you would, like--you know, you would flip it over. You would flip the record over, and that would be, like, the B-Side, right? And so the B-Sides were, like, the songs that weren't, like, the chart toppers, but they were still good songs, right? So, you know, that's really what we're trying to do here with B-Sides. But see, the thing about Living Corporate B-Sides is the B-Sides'll be hits too. It's kind of like when you think about Beyonce, right? Like, when you think about, like, a B-Side from Beyonce, like, it's still a hit, you know what I'm saying? Like, that's what we're trying to do with Living Corporate, you know what I'm saying? I'm not saying we're Beyonce. I'm just saying we're making hits doe. ["ow" sfx] That's all. Now, look, we've introduced, you know, plenty of guests, movers and shakers, business people, and, you know, today's no different. We have a great guest, Melanie Akwule. Melanie: Hello, hello.Zach: What's up? CEO and founder of MINWO, LLC, a company focused on building black wealth and black business. Melanie describes herself as living at the intersections of business and technology, black and female, African and American, introvert and extrovert, leading and supporting, and the trees and the forest, with a background in data science, product management, business administration, and diversity and inclusion. Come on, now. [kids applause sfx] So impressive. Melanie, welcome to the show. How are you doing?Melanie: I'm good. I'm great. What a time to be alive. Just living each day.Zach: No, I 100% agree. [straight up sfx]Melanie: Thanks so much for having me.Zach: No, thank you for being here. Now, look, I know I did a little bit of a short intro, but would you mind telling us a little bit about yourself?Melanie: Yeah. When you say it all like that I kind of sound like somebody, don't I? [laughs]Zach: [jokingly] Just a little bit though.Melanie: [laughs] Where do I start? Well, first off, I just finished up my MBA, so I am a free woman. You could not pay me to go back to class. [air horn sfx] Thank you. Yeah, I just finished my MBA from Berkeley Haas, so I'm still living out here in the Oakland area. Born and raised in Burke, Virginia. Wanted to shout out the 703 right quick. Like I mentioned, or like you mentioned, Nigerian-American, and really just out here trying to leave a legacy through my company.Zach: I love it, I love it. You know, there's so much there. We gotta talk about MINWO, right? Like, let's talk about the organization. Let's talk about the origin. Let's talk about the vision.Melanie: Yeah. So MINWO was something that was kind of birthed out of a necessity. I was one of those people that did not want to start a business. It was kind of like how in Atlanta every rapper has a mixtape. Well, in the Bay Area it's like everyone's an entrepreneur, everyone's a founder, so I was like, "No, that's not gonna be me," but, you know, life takes you in directions that you don't really--you can't really plan for. So in 2015 the George Zimmerman verdict came out, and I was livid, as was most of our community, and it really just pushed me to do something, and for me it's--I've always been about economic development, economic empowerment within our community, and I feel like it's the--it's really the way that we'll be able to make the changes that we want to see in this country, because you can't play in the political game if you don't have financial backing. So that's really how it came about.Zach: Those are facts.Melanie: Yeah. That's really how it came about. Zach: So you're absolutely right, and I think--you know, when I look at MINWO and I think about, like, just the importance of community, right? When you talk about, like, black and brown economic empowerment, that doesn't happen on an island, and it never has. Like, no group has ever built any type of economic power base or political structure on their own, right? So, you know, we're talking about effectively supporting women, specifically black women, in the workplace, and we've talked about that a few times, and really, you know, we really can't talk about it enough. You know, what has been your experience as a black woman in corporate America?Melanie: You know, it's a unicorn kind of situation sometimes, right? Like, sometimes you look around and you're like, "Man, I'm blessed to be the only person in this room from my community, like, to represent and to show them just how bad--- we can be, but also on the flip side it can be extremely stressful. I was working for a Fortune 10 company, one of the largest in the world, and it was just amazing to me how I can go so many places and still be the only black woman in the room. And so it really just--it drove me to want to 1. build community that much more, so I was a part of their African-American ERG at work, even led it for a little bit, but then also 2. making sure that the knowledge that I'm getting in those rooms, so at work and then also at B school, taking that knowledge and bringing it back to my community, 'cause if I'm the only person in that room, that means there are many, many others that's not getting that same type of wealth of knowledge. And so I took it upon me to make sure that I was doing my best to kind of package that information up and bring it back to my community. Zach: That's super dope. And, you know, it's interesting because, you know, experiences, our experiences, they shape the things that we eventually do, right? So how have your experiences in corporate America shaped the culture that you're trying to build within MINWO?Melanie: Yeah. So for me, my thing with corporate America is I would go into the office and I didn't know whether I was battling the fact that I was black, the fact that I was female, or the fact that I was young and in a leadership position, and so it was constantly like, "I'm not sure which weapon I need to use today," and who I was trying to fight today, and so in building MINWO I'm really just focusing on--you know, all of the superficial stuff does not matter, right? Like, who are the people that are working with me? Who are the people that I'm working with? And how can we work most optimally together? And so I very much designed the company to not necessarily worry about working hours or not necessarily worry about how people work. As long as they're getting their stuff done, as long as they're, you know, working as a team, that's really all that matters to me, and then also just being able to pour into them as a mentor, as someone that barely knows what she's doing, but, you know, again, sharing the few gems that I do have, that's also been important to me, just realizing that we can all win. It doesn't necessarily have to be a zero-sum kind of game.Zach: [cha-ching sfx] No, you're absolutely right. [both laugh] You know, so you talked about mentorship. Can you talk a little bit about, you know--like, let's say you had three points. Like, what would your three points of advice be for women of color who are looking to get into entrepreneurship?Melanie: Ooh, that's--just three? [laughs] It's hard because the community that I work with is primarily black women, and just to see the way that we have so much--we give so much to others and we are very afraid of giving to ourselves. So I think the first point would be making sure that you don't forget to prioritize yourself, right? So, like, even as a business owner, your job is to, you know, work with your clients, work with your customers, making sure that you're providing a product or service for them that makes them happy, but also you need to take care of your own business, right? So do you have your business processes lined up? Do you have your business strategy outlined? Do you have all of the fundamental things that you need to be able to grow your business? So that's definitely number one. Number two is don't be afraid to support your fellow sister. I'm all about the retweeting and the sharing and the, you know, posting on my stories of everybody and anybody's business that I know about, because it doesn't take any food off of my plate, right? Like, just being able to support and promote the people that I know that are out here hustling as well. It's amazing to me how many people talk about supporting and how the community needs to support more, but they don't press that Share button or they don't press that Like button or they--you know? And so it's just, you know, work on building up that habit of sharing and leaving reviews and all that kind of stuff, 'cause those are the ways that you can support black-owned businesses for free. And then I think last is don't be afraid to ask for help. I think that is one of the things that, you know, for me especially, I had to learn to ask for help, right? So even--and that's as small or as big as building a team. If you have people that can support you in building your business, then you're able to run faster, then you're able to do more, but if you cannot even bring yourself to say, "Okay, I need help," and figure out the areas that you need help with and then be able to close your eyes and let go of it and let them actually help you, you just create a lot of stress and strain for yourself. And so I think those would be my three points.Zach: [Flex bomb sfx] Just a small Flex bomb. Nothing too crazy, you know what I'm saying? Just a little bit of something, you know what I'm saying? Just a little 10-piece for 'em, you know what I'm saying? Anyway, I definitely agree, [laughs] and I--you're spot on, especially when you talked about, like, just sharing, retweeting, you know what I'm saying, giving 5 stars. What's up? What's up, listeners? Melanie: Nudge nudge. [laughs]Zach: Nudge nudge, you know what I'm saying? Y'all see me. You hear me. If you're listening to this right now, you know you have to be giving me 5 stars. Okay. All right, back to this.Melanie: [laughs] And then [you come back?] Come back every time. [laughs]Zach: Right, right. Download numbers going up. 5 stars staying the same. What's going on? Come on. We've got a disconnect. [laughs] Nah, but you're absolutely right, and I just love the advice. So, you know, what I like about MINWO is the fact that y'all are building a true community of black and brown women entrepreneurs, right? And this type of thing requires trust, and so what strategies have you implemented to build and maintain that? 'Cause you talked about asking for help and supporting one another and kind of having your stuff in order. I mean, again, it takes a certain level of vulnerability. So what does it look like to create and maintain that?Melanie: Yeah, that's been a lot of what we've been learning over the last year. So the community you're referring to is Rialto. It's basically a platform for not only black business owners but black professional service providers to work together, connect, so that we're--you know, they're building each other's businesses essentially, and what I've found just in the last year of, you know, having a Slack team of these business owners is that it requires a lot of listening. Even though, you know, I know the things that I've learned in school and I'm like, "Hey, these are topics or things that you should know for your business," you can't necessarily start with, like, throwing scripture at them, right? You have to understand where they are, and you have to understand the walk that they've walked so far and meet them where they are, and for me that's been the most rewarding part. And what's also helped with that is that now what we do are monthly challenges. So this last month we just did a lean business model canvas challenge where everyone in the community worked together to work on their own individual lean business model canvasses, and then we had monthly meet-ups, which were virtual--which is a chance for anyone that wants to join, to get together, talk through, you know, their high points, their low points, what it was like for them to go through that experience, and then we also have a last little session where it's an open brainstorming session. So as a business owner, you don't often know too many other business owners, so to have that community of people that are living the same life that you are, that are making the same sacrifices that you are to bring about a vision, I think that's the part where you really start to build that trust in that community. It's from knowing that "Okay, they're not just talking for talking's sake," right? Like, "They're actually going through it too."Zach: No, that's real. And, you know, you're right. You can know everything in the world, but if people don't trust you, they don't really believe, you know, that you're really listening to them, they're just--it's gonna go in one ear and out the other. So look, where can folks learn more about MINWO?Melanie: Yeah. So we have a company website, minwo.co. That's M-I-N-W-O dot co, and that's where you can learn more about Rialto, the community that I mentioned, and then also Financial Formation, which is the personal finance consulting that I also do. Or you can go to my personal website, melanuschi.com, and that's where you can find more about personal finance consulting, business consulting, and anything else that you're interested in that's related to black wealth or black business.Zach: [coin sfx] And there it is, you know what I'm saying? [both laugh]Melanie: I'm loving these. [laughs]Zach: I'm saying, right? I'm trying to tell you. It's like Living Corporate--so you remember that Salt Bae meme? But we're, like, sprinkling, like, sound effects on the jaunt, you know what I'm saying? Like, we're really out here, you know? It's really fun. [both laugh] This has been a really great discussion, and I want to thank you for coming on the show. Before we go though, do you have any shout-outs? Anybody you're working with? Any other projects you want to mention?Melanie: Yeah. No, I really just want to shout-out the ladies that I've been working with on MINWO and Rialto for the last--I have business owners that are with me from literally Day 1, before we had a website, before we had any kind of anything. So Sydney [?] with Part and Parcel, Alexis Coates from LOTUS Creations, Teddy Renee [?] from TeddyRenee.com [?]. Those ladies have really supported me literally from Day 1, and so I just want to shout them out and say thank you.Zach: Man, I know they're thanking you too. [both laugh] We appreciate you again, and yeah, look, y'all, that does it for us. Thank you for joining us on the Living Corporate podcast. Make sure you follow us on Instagram @LivingCorporate, Twitter @LivingCorp_Pod, and subscribe to our newsletter through living-corporate.com. Living DASH corporate dot com, you know what I'm saying? Or livingcorporate.co, livingcorporate.tv, livingcorporate.org, livingcorporate.net. You know what I'm saying? We're out here, okay? We just don't have, you know, livingcorporate.com 'cause Australia got the domain, you know? We've got all the domains. Australia has the main livingcorporate.com domain looking at us like [haha sfx], and I'm just like--I don't know what to do. I don't know what to do at this point, but, you know, one day, mark my words--y'all, join me in prayer. We're gonna be big enough. The brand will be brolic enough one day to get that domain. Okay, if you have a question you'd like for us to answer and read on the show, make sure you email us at livingcorporatepodcast@gmail.com, and that does it for us on the show. You've been listening to Melanie Akwule, founder of MINWO. Peace.

Zach has the pleasure of speaking with Porter Braswell, co-founder and CEO of Jopwell, to learn more about the company and to hear his story behind its creation. Jopwell is the leading career advancement platform for Black, Latinx, and Native American students and professionals - check them out! Porter shares a bit about the work Jopwell is doing to encourage inclusive cultures within institutions that black and brown folks are trying to enter and a whole lot more.Connect with Porter on LinkedIn, Instagram, and Twitter!Check out his book, Let Them See You: The Guide for Leveraging Your Diversity at Work, on Amazon!Learn more about Jopwell at their website, and connect with them on social media! LinkedIn, Instagram, Twitter, FacebookTRANSCRIPTZach: What's up, y'all? And welcome to Living Corporate. You know what we are. We're talking about real talk in a corporate world. Now, look, I come on here, and I typically will say "What's up, y'all?" But to be honest with y'all I'm a little nervous, 'cause, you know, every time we come at y'all we're coming to you with a really great guest, but this guest is a little bit--you know what? Let me not do that, 'cause we've had a lot of really great guests, right? Like, we've had J. Prince. We've had Chris Moreland. We've had Jennifer Brown. We've had DeRay Mckesson. You know, we've had some big names. We've had Chilla Jones, the battle rapper. We've had people, right? We've had CEOs, executives. We've had Accenture - we spotlighted them a couple months ago. So okay, let me not get too starstruck, but a personal hero of mine, somebody I've been admiring from afar, we have Porter Braswell on the show today. Yo. Listen, if you don't know about Porter Braswell, Porter Braswell is a Yale graduate and former Goldman Sachs associate who co-founded Jopwell.com, the leading career advancement platform for black, Latinx, and Native American students and professionals. Braswell frequently speaks about diversity in the workplace with Jopwell's corporate clients. He's been profiled in Fast Company, Forbes, TechCrunch, Vanity Fair, and Ad Week, and has received numerous rewards and recognitions, such as LinkedIn's Next Wave, Top Professionals 35 and Under, Ink Magazine's 30 Under 30, Fast Company's 100 Most Creative People in Business, Vanity Fair's--look, I'm getting loud, just getting excited, talking about all of this dude's accolades, but I'm really excited to have him on the show, and so with us--we have him, man. Porter, what's going on? How are you doing, man?Porter: [laughs] That's a very generous introduction. I appreciate it.Zach: Well, look, it's great to have you on the show, man. Look, not to put too much sauce on it, but, you know, you're the man, right? You graduated from Yale. You know, you hooped all four years. Now, I have a question for you, 'cause I looked all around--were you, like--you look like a two-guard. What was your position?Porter: [laughs] I was a point guard. Definitely the point guard.Zach: Okay. Now, look, were you the--now, let me ask you this, were you the POINT guard, or were you, like--like, what style? Are you a facilitator? Or are you more like the--or are you kind of like a Russell Westbrook type where you're just out there?Porter: Well, you know what? So I was a scoring guard, and if I could go back in time I would've made me way more of a facilitator, recognizing that, you know, almost 6'1", I'm not gonna go to the league as a scoring guard, and so--I feel like nowadays people draw their inspiration from, like, a Steph or whatever, but when I was growing up it was Allen Iverson and, like, you scored as a point guard. And you still score as a guard now of course, but--Zach: But it's different though.Porter: Yeah. You know, like, a step-back three-point shooter. Like, you can get away with that now. When I was playing, you had to go to the hoop and finish. Zach: Yeah. No, you're absolutely right.Porter: Yeah. I would've [?] my game after other people, [laughs] but it worked outZach: [laughs] Well, look, let's talk about this, right? So, like, you know, what point did you realize that diversity, inclusion and equity was, like, important enough to transfer and transition from Goldman Sachs to create Jopwell? Like, was there a specific moment that rung out to you? Like, what did that look like?Porter: Yeah. So basically when I was--when I was working at Goldman, at the time I was there for about three years, and I was a product of the diversity recruiting efforts starting back in high school. In high school I spent two summers interning at Morgan Stanley via diversity recruiting initiatives, and then at Yale I spent three summers interning at Goldman Sachs, all via diversity initiatives, and so my whole life, up until that point in time, was about diversity and inclusion, and that's where I found my opportunities. And buying and selling currencies, while fulfilling, it wasn't the fulfillment I was looking for. I wanted to do something that I felt was more impactful, something that I felt I was uniquely qualified to do and something that was solving, like, a real pain point--solving a real challenge that people or companies were facing. And so with those ingredients, I took a step back and recognized that diversity recruiting and inclusion was a massive pain point for corporate America. It was something I was uniquely qualified to solve, and I was incredibly passionate about it, and so I decided that my life's focus was gonna be on building more diverse and inclusive organizations and doing it through a tech company - that became Jopwell, and I think that's really important because we took a traditional non-profit model but made it into a for-profit tech thing because we're solving real pain points of companies, and we wanted to basically build a competitive atmosphere, like any other tech company, where you're disrupting an industry and you want to win at it. And so we took that approach, and, you know, I'm very thankful that my life's work and my passion and my actual day-to-day job all align with each other.Zach: ["ow" sfx] Man, I'm really thankful for it too, right? Like I said--I told you, like, right before we got on, like, it's been incredible because Jopwell hasn't really been around that long, right? Like, y'all launched in 2014, right? But at the same time, like, it was so disruptive, right? Like, it was, like, so--I remember when Jopwell came around, and I just remember, like, literally--three years ago even--I was just looking around and I was like, "What is this?" And I signed up. I'm in the Well, you know what I'm saying? Like, I'm engaged, right? But you're right, the platform itself doesn't come across--and I think it's interesting balance, right? Because y'all are providing, like, a profit service, but it doesn't come across like y'all are--what's the word? Like, bartering in people, right? Like, you're actually building community while connecting these folks to, like, opportunities. Like, that's really cool to me.Porter: So the foundational thing of what we do is that we build community, and we can only build community if we are very authentic and understanding of the community, which we are given I'm from the community. Zach: Right.Porter: And that is a hard thing to do, and if you can build the trust of a community, then you can represent brands behind it. And so Jopwell has been able to carve out this area where brands recognize they need to rely on us to authentically connect and engage with this audience that we are a part of, and in doing so we want to deliver the most incredible experience and opportunities for the community. So as long as we keep the community at the center of what we do, we'll be fine as a business, but we're not transactional. We don't think of the community in that way. Like, again, we are from and a part of the community, so we know the pain points, and so we've just--we took a different approach, you know? I think that's the simplest way to describe it. We took a different approach. We took a step back. I'm not from a recruiting background, and I think that helped me, because we looked at this problem in a way in which others didn't look at it before.Zach: Man. You know what? It's 100%, 'cause it's interesting because I don't think--it's easy to, like, understate that when you come up in, like, these corporatized recruiting platforms, it just--it naturally skews your perspective and creates blind spots for you. It doesn't matter what your particular--I mean, your ethnicity and gender plays a part in that, but I'm just talking about the culture of recruiting is often times so regimented that it creates a variety of blind points that you're not necessarily even thinking about--like, recruitment experience--as much. Like, you're thinking about it from a "check the box" perspective, but there's that personal touch that rarely is really considered. And so 100%. I definitely agree that you not having that formal recruiting background gives you a bit more insight. Porter, it also reminds me that, like, the people who are often best suited to solve for inclusion efforts for black and brown people are often black and brown people, right? Like, you had--you were a hooper at Yale. You then were a Goldman Sachs employee and a Rising Star, and then you still, because of your experiences and your insights and your passions, were able to shape that into having really unique insights, enough that you were able to create a whole platform from that. Do you know what I mean?Porter: Yeah. Well, I think that everyone has a unique story, and everybody has unique contexts in which they come to the table with, and it's a responsibility of diverse individuals to expose others to the different contexts. Now, for me, that allowed myself to build the business, but that doesn't have to manifest itself in a business. Like, leveraging your diversity as an asset, you could just expose people to a different way of thinking, which helps any organization, which is the power of diversity of course. So leveraging your diversity doesn't have to lead to a business, but leveraging your diversity can lead to disruption and change, and that is a responsibility that diverse individuals have, and for me I felt that responsibility to build this platform.Zach: So, you know, you talked about this, and it's a really good segue--you know, Porter, it's almost like you're media-trained. It's almost like you do this often, you know? But you talked about leveraging your diversity. That reminds me really of your latest book, "Let Them See You: The Guide for Leveraging Your Diversity at Work." It was just published. And this book carries a theme of personal responsibility, and of course that's critical, right? So, like, talking about how you leverage your diversity to create, to your point, disruption, change, within whatever context that you're in, but with that in mind, can we also talk about the work that you've done personally, and the work Jopwell is doing, to encourage inclusive cultures within these institutions that black and brown folks are trying to enter?Porter: Yeah. So writing a book is a really interesting process. [laughs] I'll start by that, saying that. So when I wrote the book, I decided that I wanted to write a book to professionals of color, because that's, again, what I'm--that's what I know. That's the group I'm a part of. And when you write a book, what's really difficult is that you have to pick one audience [to?] talk to one reader, and you have to make sure that you are speaking in a way that the reader can follow you. So when I chose to write this book, I chose my audience to be the Jopwell member. I chose to write to a professional of color, and in that conversation I am basically mentoring and saying, "As a person of color, regardless of your environment, this is how you leverage your diversity as an asset, and you have a unique opportunity to do so." What I wasn't able to do in the book was talk about what companies can do to create environments where people can actually leverage their diversity as an asset, because if you try to [?] in one it becomes very complicated. You can't--the reader can't follow along. So the book is about what we as professionals of color can do, but now there needs to be a conversation about what can companies do to create environments where this can actually happen? And so a lot of what we do from a Jopwell perspective to companies is that we discuss with them different strategies and ways to think about building diverse, inclusive, and equitable environments, and it really starts [at] the top down, meaning that, like, the senior most people, the CEO, the board level, they have to be committed and bought in. Companies have to clearly define and articulate what diversity even means in the context of their organization. Are you talking about ethnicity? Are you talking about gender? Sexual orientation? Socioeconomic background? What are you talking about? Because to build a culture that is inclusive--well, inclusive of whom? You know? And I think that's a really important concept. And then how do you measure if it's working? And so there are a lot of steps that companies have to take. Unfortunately, a lot of companies don't feel comfortable having uncomfortable conversations and they want to jump to solutions without really thinking through "What does success look like?" So at Jopwell, when we work with a company, we take them through those stages. We work with them to define what success looks like. And diversity and inclusion is not, like, a 1-year initiative. It's gonna be ingrained in your culture moving forward. So it's a long-term play, and so there's a lot of work that we do with companies that's less tech-focused--it's a lot of human capital--but because we're doing that at work, we can help the community find opportunities that they should be able to thrive in.Zach: And so let's talk about that. I want to press a little bit more on what you said about, like, you know, you stated that a lot of times--that part of the inclusive culture for folks to actually leverage their diversity well is in organizations being comfortable having uncomfortable conversations, and I've noticed that too, that, like, a lot of times if you mention the word race, or you mention the word gender, or you mention any of these words that indicate other, you're right, organizations will often kind of go to, "Well, we're just gonna do this, this, this, this, and this." It almost becomes, like, a--like they're putting out a fire, right? It's more reactionary and it's not solution-oriented, and you talked about people being comfortable with those uncomfortable dialogues. What does it look like for Jopwell to help organizations work through some of that discomfort?Porter: Yeah. So what we tell companies is that if there's something that's happening in the world or in the country that disproportionately affects a certain community and you have that community as employees within your organization, how do you express that in a way that's, like, non-polarizing or non-political? Because you should treat your colleagues and your peers as you would want to be treated. So if you're from a community and something's happening within that community that's, like, on national news and you don't address it as an organization, like, of course that employee won't bring their whole self and their authentic self to work, and if they don't bring their authentic self and their whole self to work you're not gonna get the most out of them. So how do you create [environments] where these potentially uncomfortable conversations can occur in a way that it's respectful and that employees understand that the workforce that you work in is very inclusive and these conversations are just a part of the fabric of what makes the organization's culture special? So, like, let's start small, right? And so thinking about topics and news conversations that are happening, how do you start to address those things? Now, we've seen many companies do really interesting things on the back of our recommendations when these things occur. Some companies have hosted town halls where they bring all hands, and, you know, it's a conversation of what's going on and what's the position of a company around certain topics that they cannot ignore. And the feedback has been incredible, naturally so, from the attendees, because they felt like they were seen for the first time. And then again, like, if companies aren't used to doing those things, it can be potentially uncomfortable. So that's an important concept.Zach: And kind of going into that, right? And I shared this a little bit earlier. What excites me about Jopwell is that it's not a job board - it's actually a community, and I talked about this earlier, but it's a community built by and built for underrepresented folks, and, like, that comes with a lot. So I think about Living Corporate--and Living Corporate and Jopwell are not the same, right? Like, the missions are different, but there's some similarity in that we exist as a resource for underrepresented voices, and I think that comes with a lot. I think for Living Corporate it's unique because we're really just here on, like, the employee side. Like, we're just here to amplify voices, but we're not--we don't necessarily have, like, the same connected, like, broad community that you have, and we're also of course not managing, like, tons of corporate relationships, and so I'm really curious about, like, what does it look like for you and your team Porter, to manage the emotional labor of, like, carrying and advocating for and building this platform to amplify and support black and brown folks while at the same time managing, like, the business relationships that come with that?Porter: Yeah. So it can get very complicated, but we always--because [we work?] for the community, the community knows what to expect from Jopwell and companies know what to expect from Jopwell. So we don't speak to the community any differently than we talk to companies, and we don't talk to companies any differently than we talk to the community. Like, we are very consistent in who we are. For us, we always do what we believe is the best for the community, and Jopwell takes stands on things that we feel passionately about that affect the community, regardless of what companies think. So a perfect example is during the last election, when Trump won, we knew, positive or negative, there was gonna be a very strong reaction from them. So even though we're a tech company, we knew we had to host a town hall, or create a forum, where people can share their perspectives and how they feel. So we hosted a town hall in New York City. We had, you know, several hundred people show up. No real agenda other than hearing the perspective of the community, and people shared how they felt, and just providing that forum, I think, was beneficial, and we felt that we had a responsibility to the community. So we know if we're thinking these things, others are thinking these things at work, so there needs to be an outlet where they can have these conversations about all of the stuff that's going on. And so, again, we have to be very committed and very--and always bring it back to we are a community-first class [?]. The two things that we believe are best for the community--again, as long as we're consistent and then companies know that, the community knows that, and Jopwell will always do what's best for the community.Zach: Man, I love that, man, you know? I just--and I appreciate it, and it feels--like, to your point around consistency, like, it's really cool--'cause I've seen other... I don't know. It's just interesting, right? And, like, I've talked about this to other, like, diversity and inclusion leaders. I think that we're seeing this pattern of some of these spaces becoming a bit more authentic in their language and in their presentation, and I really do believe that Jopwell is leading the cause in that, right? Because a lot of times when you have, like, these spaces that are, like, led by predominant majority folks, they can sometimes come across lukewarm or silent on certain spaces, and then it--like, it creates an inconsistent brand, because it's like, "Okay, well, if you're for diversity and inclusion, you should have a voice on this topic because it's impacting the people that you claim to advocate for." And I do recall content coming out around the election, and I do remember just being, like--feeling really affirmed by that. So question for you - you talked a little bit about forums. You recently hosted Jopwell's first ever summit, Jopwell Talks. It looked like an awesome event. Can you tell us a little bit more about the day and what you hope attendees took away from the summit?Porter: Yeah, absolutely. So we were so thrilled to host that event. Basically, Ryan and I, my co-founder and I, we've gone to diversity and inclusion conferences time after time after time over the last, you know, 4.5 years or so of building Jopwell. It was frustrating to me that I didn't leave feeling inspired [for, like, what] tomorrow brings me, and we are incredibly fortunate that throughout the Jopwell journey there have been many mentors and celebrities that have joined the movement with us, and we felt that we could provide these trailblazers [?] a stage to share stories of how they got to where they are and the things they've learned along the way that the audience can recognize that there's no linear path to success and that these individuals that we can highlight, we felt that it's not often that you get access to these folks. So we wanted to create an incredible environment, so we rented out the Brooklyn Museum. We wanted to have the most outstanding speakers, so we went after [sticks?] - Gayle King, Dr. Michael Lomax, Antonio Lucio, the CMO of Facebook, Edith Cooper, [?]. I mean, just incredible folks. [?] loved hosting it. And from these individuals, we were able to share their story and highlight them in such a way that the audience could follow along and let the conversations breathe. So we didn't have panels. There were no breakout sessions. It was amazing content from amazing individuals, and we crowd-sourced some of the questions. You were involved in this incredible environment listening to these folks, and what I've received as feedback from people, they left feeling motivated and excited to [see] tomorrow, and they saw these folks, and that was the goal of the day, and so we're very thankful that people were excited to attend and that they wanted [to be a] part of it, and, you know, we plan on doing a lot more moving forward.Zach: Man, that's incredible. And look, Porter, you know that we appreciate you. Super thankful that you were able to join on the platform. In fact, you know, it's pretty customary. We got to. You know, we typically drop air horns. We drop 'em at the beginning, but I got too excited and nervous 'cause you're on our show and so I didn't drop 'em. So I'ma go ahead and drop the air horns right here--[air horns sfx]--and I'ma go ahead and give you a Flex bomb--[Flex bomb sfx]--and I'ma give you some coins, 'cause you been dropping dimes. [coin sfx] And I just want to thank you, man. I appreciate you. Thank you so much. Before we let you go though, any parting words or shout-outs?Porter: No, [but] I appreciate the work that you all [do]. You know, the more that we lift each other up, the more opportunity exists for everybody, and this is not a zero-sum game, and I get very frustrated when I'm the only person of color in a room, and--again, the conversations need to keep happening, and that's the only way we're gonna start changing things. So thank you for building this and for allowing individuals to hear stories at scale. It's what I need and needed when I was thinking about what I wanted to do next, and it's not often where you can get access to folks and really hear their authentic stories. And so it's an incredible platform that you're building and, you know, thank you for doing that.Zach: Oh, my gosh. Man, I'm about to blush over here. Yo. [laughs] Listen, y'all, it's been Zach. You've been listening to Living Corporate. We are real talk in a corporate world. You make sure you check us out on Twitter at LivingCorp_Pod, Instagram at @LivingCorporate. Make sure you just check us out anywhere. You know, just Google us, you know what I mean? We're not Jopwell level, but we're out here. You just Google "Living Corporate." You want to check out our website? Check out livingcorporate.co, livingcorporate.net, livingcorporate.org, livingcorporate.tv, living-corporate--please say the dash--Porter, do you know we have all the livingcorporates except livingcorporate.com, man? We've got all them domains. I'm trying to get it, man. Australia has livingcorporate.com, but we're gonna get there one day, man. Let's see here. I think that does it for us. This has been Zach again, and you've been listening to Porter Braswell - general beast, but specifically for this podcast, CEO and co-founder of Jopwell. 'Til next time, y'all. Peace.

Zach has the pleasure of chatting with Brittani Hunter, founder and CEO of The Mogul Millennial, and they discuss how to go about effectively using your voice at work. They also talk about The Mogul Millennial platform in general, what she's looking forward to in the future, and what initially led her to its creation. Connect with Brittani on Twitter and Instagram!Check out The Mogul Millennial website and follow them on Twitter and Instagram!TRANSCRIPTZach: What's up, y'all? It's Zach with Living Corporate, and again, look, y'all know what we do. We have incredible guests all of the time. Now, this guest is pretty interesting, because, you know, as I've been--as we. Shout-out to Ade, shout-out to Sheneisha, shout-out to Tiffany, shout-out to Tara, shout-out to Taylor, shout-out to Tristan, you know what I'm saying? These are all sounding like random names, but these are all people that actually I work with on Living Corporate. Shout-out to Amy, okay? I see you. We have all--as we continue to really build out Living Corporate, folks, there's one name that continues to come up. Like, "Have you talked to this person? Have you talked to this person? Have you talked to this person?" And I'm like, "Yes, I have. Yes, we've made a connection. Yes, we still need to interview. Yes, but I do know who that is," and it is this individual, and this person is a LinkedIn Top Voice. They're an entrepreneur. They're a writer. They're an educator. They're a public speaker. They're a mover. They're a shaker, you know what I'm saying? They're a snatcher of edges, you know what I'm saying? They out here is my point, and this person is Brittani Hunter. Brittani, welcome to the show. How are you doing?Brittani: I'm doing really good. Thanks for having me.Zach: No, no, no. Thank you for actually being on the show. In fact, let me go ahead and just--just a very modest, you know what I'm saying, cheer, just to welcome you, you know what I'm saying? [cheers sfx] Nothing too crazy. Just something to kind of get us started. For those of us who don't know you--I know I kind of gave a little bit, but would you mind telling us a little bit about yourself?Brittani: Yeah. So like you mentioned earlier, I'm an entrepreneur and also a LinkedIn Top Voice. I am also a proud HBCU grad, so if you went to PVAMU, shout-out to you. I am based here in Texas, Dallas to be exact, and I've been in the entrepreneur space for about 3.5 years, but full-time since January of this year. So January of 2019.Zach: Okay, now, wait, you're not gonna shout-out your HBCU?Brittani: I did. You didn't hear me? Prairie View A&M University. So PVAMU. ["ow" sfx]Brittani: [laughs] Yeah. It's the best HBCU in my opinion, so yeah, shout-out to you if you are a PV grad as well. Zach: Shout-out to the HBCUs. It's so funny, 'cause, you know, no one ever goes, "Shout-out to the PWIs!" But, you know, it's cool. Shout-out to education, and definitely shout-out to HBCUs. My dad went to Jackson State, and my mom [was Miss?] Tougaloo back in the day, you know what I'm saying? Yeah, I came from good stock is what I'm trying to say. [jokingly] You're not the only person out here flexing in your complexion, that's all. Okay, so look, today we're talking about using your voice effectively. You talked about being a LinkedIn Top Voice. First of all, what does it mean to be a LinkedIn Top Voice?Brittani: So every year, LinkedIn, they'll select people that currently use the LinkedIn platform--hence the name LinkedIn Top Voice--and what it is is people that they recognize that are making an impact through the platform, and so an impact on the platform through their content. So yeah, to become a LinkedIn Top Voice essentially means that you're recognized as someone who has influence and a heavy impact on the users, on the thousands and millions of users that are on LinkedIn.Zach: Let's talk about you being selected. Like, what did that process look like?Brittani: It was actually a surprise. So I was literally at my old 9-to-5, um, not doing work, checking my personal email on my phone, and I saw that I had an email from one of the editors. And so LinkedIn has several editors that specifically focus on different subjects, and so the editor reached out and was pretty much saying that they love all of my content, that they, you know, on the back end they've been seeing how much engagement and all the high impressions that my content has been getting, whether that was my blog content--'cause, you know, LinkedIn has the publishing platform that you can publish blogs on. So whether it was that or just my normal, you know, short-form or long-form posts, and they were wanting to see if I was interested in being a part of their LinkedIn Top Voice selection. And so it was pretty much--that was really it. They required for me to write a post, so once they released the list of all of the LinkedIn Top Voices in the different categories--and by the way, I was selected in the category for Management and Culture. So yeah, once they released the article with everybody that was selected, they also released a series of articles from each LinkedIn Top Voice that was selected.Zach: That's really, really cool. You know, what's really interesting about what you shared is that, you know, you said you weren't even expecting it. You were just doing what you were doing, and then it just happened, right?Brittani: Yeah. A lot of people think that there is, like, some type of formal application or if you, like, reach out to someone that works at LinkedIn that you can get it, but it doesn't work like that. If you just keep doing what you're doing and just be focused on--and you're just, like, focused on actually putting out great content, then you'll be noticed, and if you're lucky they'll select you as a Top Voice.Zach: You know what? I just--I just think it's really incredible, and like I said from the top, everybody that I talk to, as I've been talking about Living Corporate, they're like, "You know, you really need to talk to--have you talked to anybody from The Mogul Millennial?" And I'm like... but it's just been, like, an ongoing conversation, and, you know, since then, and really frankly to this day, I'm just really excited that we were able to make this connection, you know what I mean? [to this day sfx]Brittani: Yeah. [laughs] I love the soundbites. I love it, I love it. Zach: No, I appreciate. So look, on your platform you share real talk, right? So the latest piece that I personally read was about black leadership at Fortune 500 companies being at its lowest, yet black celebrity partnerships are booming--and it's so interesting because, at the time of this recording, of this podcast, you know, Jay-Z just announced that partnership that he has with the NFL for the social justice movement thing. Anyway, in it you assert that while exploring the direct and subtle implications of that fact, right? So basically you go into it, right? A lot of your pieces do this, where you have, like, this fairly, like, strong initial statement, and then you really go into the nuances and the implications of whatever you stated, right? As black creatives who are focused on content centered around business, I think there's a line we have to decide when we're going to, like, not cross, right? Like, and show how honest or raw that we're being. What has that journey looked like for you specifically and how you've balanced, like, discomforting truths with managing a brand that extends far beyond your family and close friends?Brittani: Yeah. So I think, for me, what I just try to, like, you know, work at towards every day is just, like, living my truth. When you're not living your truth, you know, you're the one that's mostly impacted, and so whether that was--you know, whether that's me right now as an entrepreneur or me back when I was working the traditional 9-to-5 in the workplace, I'm not going to downplay, you know, what I think or try to sugarcoat, like, my thoughts and my feelings because of someone else, and so I think it's important that when we speak on our truths it also empowers other people to do the same. So specifically through Mogul Millennial, I like to have those types of conversations and so that way, you know, the issue at hand isn't ignored or it's not--you know, it's not watered down.Zach: And so how do you feel like that philosophy could be applied to, like, black and brown professionals in their day-to-day jobs and how they use their voice?Brittani: I think, you know--it's funny. So it makes me think about--like, a really quick story. When I was working at one of my last 9-to-5s, it was a predominantly white workplace, and one of my coworkers who was black, she would just, like, literally turn her personality all the way off, even from, like, the foods that she ate.Zach: Wait. Whoa, whoa, whoa. Hold on. Whoa, whoa, whoa. [record scratch sfx] What you mean the food that she ate?Brittani: Yeah! So she wouldn't eat things like chicken in the office or really be, like, really careful on the types of fruit that she would eat.Zach: The types of--oh, so she wouldn't eat, like, a banana is what you're trying to say?Brittani: That, watermelon. You know, like, the traditional, like, things--[haha sfx, both laugh] Yeah, like, you think about, like, black people, and it was weird. So we would have, like, potlucks at work, and if people brought chicken she would say that she was allergic to chicken, but she loved chicken.Zach: She would say that she was allergic to chicken?Brittani: Yeah. It was like, "Girl, why are you doing this? Just be yourself and people will like you for it," you know?Zach: Can we have, like, a real conversation about this though? Okay, so I was talking to my--my wife and I were talking about this. We talk about this often, and Dave Chappelle did a whole stand-up skit about it, but you know how, like, just racist--anti-black racism is so lazy. So it's like, you really think that chicken and watermelon are, like, exclusive to black people? Do you know delicious watermelon is? Do you know how delicious chicken--like, do you know how many cultures enjoy chicken? We all love chicken. Mm-mm-mm-mm-mm. So she would not eat watermelon. She would not eat bananas. Bananas are--you know, they're a lot of sugar, so if you're watching your weight and you're trying to, you know, kind of cut down on your calories, I can understand--Brittani: Yeah, the carbs and everything. Yeah, I get it, but, you know, from that to, you know, purposely not listening to music that she wanted to in her own personal office.Zach: She had a personal office?Brittani: Yeah. It was just crazy. Like, do what you want to do. Like, be yourself. And so she would say all of the time, like, "Well, Brittani, you're gonna listen to this type of music in the office?" Yes. This is my office. You know, I've earned my role. I'm just as qualified as the next person, and I'm not gonna feel uncomfortable at work and not do things that are true to myself, but the person next to me is, just because we're two different skin colors, come from two different backgrounds, and, you know, upbringings. You know, it doesn't mean that they can do something that I can't. And so one of the things that I learned is that, you know, when you're true to yourself, people, they like the real you. They want to know the real you. You don't have to whiten it to be accepted. So yeah, I highly encourage people in the workplace to not, like, you know, whiten or change who they are just to quote-unquote "fit in," because, you know, people can recognize bull**** and they know that it's not the real you anyway.Zach: That's right. Now, look, this is a clean podcast, but, you know, I respect you, you know what I'm saying?Brittani: Oh, I'm sorry.Zach: No, no, that's okay, but when you said it I was like--[Metal Gear Solid surprised sfx]--you know what I'm saying? Like, "Okay, wait." But no, no, you're absolutely right, people can recognize it, and you just want to be yourself, you know? It's interesting. We had a conversation on Season 1. It was, like, our first episode, with Fenorris Pearson, who was--he was, like, an executive with Motorola and Dell, and he talked about the fact that he went on this plane ride, right, with, like, this very senior white executive, and he said, "Look, we can tell when y'all are putting on airs, and, like, it's fake." Like, "We hate that. It's annoying. We can see right through it. It's awkward. It's clearly not authentic," right? Now, I don't want to shame anybody, because we've been classically--we've been conditioned to put on coverings and participate in respectability politics as a means of survival, so I'm not shaming anybody for doing those things, but at the same time--not but, and we also live in a time when, look, you have a voice. Use it and be yourself, right? Like, if you want to listen to Rick Ross, you know what I'm saying, do that. You want to smoke a Black and Mild on your smoke break? Go ahead and do that. Like, nobody's gonna stop you. Like, it's okay. It's all right. Maybe not a Black and Mild. [both laugh] I'm trying to think of the last time I've seen somebody smoke a Black and Mild, like, in a work setting.Brittani: Oh, God. I don't think I've ever seen that. That's funny.Zach: Like a 'rillo. That'd be like, "Ooh, what's going on?" [both laugh] No, no, no, but anyway, let's talk a little bit about Mogul Millennial, right? You've talked about the fact it's been going on for three years. What have you been most proud of so far, and what are you looking forward to most in the next, like, six to twelve months?Brittani: You know, when I think about, like, everything that I've experienced in these three years, the thing that I am mostly proud of was getting out of my [?] and realizing that I literally cannot do everything. At my last job, I was--I've always been in management roles, so I'm used to being, like, head over something, you know?Zach: Hold on a second. So wait, wait, wait. You said you've always been in management roles?Brittani: Yeah.["ow" sfx]Zach: Okay, I got you. Keep going. Brittani: [laughs] Yeah, so when I started, you know, The Mogul Millennial, it was, you know, just, like, a side project in the beginning since I couldn't dedicate all of my time and resources to it, but yeah, once I decided that I was gonna go full-time with it, I knew that, "Okay, well, Brittani, you can't, like, grow this company. You can't, like, really be as profitable as you want to be, and you're doing everything." So you're doing all of the social media. You're writing all of the blog posts. You're the one trying to pitch yourself and your company to different brands and partners, so you can't do it all, or you can but it's not gonna be really worth anything, or it won't be as good as it could be and as impactful as it could be. And so I really didn't want to at the beginning, I decided to put out a post asking for help, and once I did that, like, our traction increased. I felt like the content got better because we just had, you know, more diverse opinions and thoughts from--like, black millennials literally all over the world were contributing, and so I think that's what I've been most proud of, you know, recognizing that I don't know everything, and that's fine, 'cause now I have people that help me out day-to-day that are so much more better at certain things and more knowledgeable on certain topics, and I've learned a lot as well from those people.[straight up sfx]Zach: No, I feel you. Like, it's tough when, you know, you're at a point, you're grinding, and you feel like you're doing everything, right, like, to the point you're just at your wit's end. You're looking at 'em like ["what more do you want from me?" sfx] You know? It's just like, "I can't." Like, "I have to reach out." That's really important. So, you know, you not only used your voice to create your platform, but you used your voice to extend and expand your platform, 'cause you had to actually use your voice to ask for help.Brittani: Mm-hmm, absolutely. So right now--it was crazy, 'cause when I put out the first post--so since I'm... I have the highest, like, influence on LinkedIn, so, you know, I went to what I know I'm good in. So I put a post on LinkedIn, and literally within the first, like, two weeks, we had over 150 people who were like, "I want to write!" And it was so overwhelming. So between--and remember, I was still working at my 9-to-5. So in-between meetings, like, literally as I was going to, like, meetings, either, like on-site at my job or off-site, or during my lunch break, anything--on the way to the restroom, I was having interviews with these people. 'Cause some people, you know, I had to--I wanted to be accommodating as well, 'cause I wanted to help, and so yeah, it's been good. It's been really good.Zach: So what does it look like, right, to continue and build out this platform, and--actually, let me take a step back. What did it look like when you actually left your full-time job? Like, what did that conversation look like?Brittani: So I had actually planned to leave and was really strategic. So I--I think you and I had talked before and I mentioned that I lived in Houston for a short period of time.Zach: For a little bit of time, yeah.Brittani: Yeah. So originally I'm from Dallas, and I went to school at PV, which is by Houston. Went to PV, came back to Dallas, and was working at a university that's, like, north of Dallas in a small--well, not small... well, yeah, small, but it's [?]. So I was working there at UT Dallas and I remember being approached by my boss's boss--well, no, my boss's boss's boss. So, like, three people above me, to work at the property at the University of Houston, and I denied them, like, three or four times, because the pay wasn't right and I was like, "No, you're not gonna pay me [?]," and I have to move and uproot my life, and so eventually we negotiated back and forth. I got the rate that I wanted plus more, and we--and so yeah, I specifically took that role because I knew that I wanted to quit within a year so that way I could work on Mogul Millennial full-time, 'cause we were doing really well with the site, and so--so yeah, I literally only took the promotion--well, it was like a lateral promotion, so it was the same role but different duties. Zach: But you had got that [cha-ching sfx].Brittani: Exactly, exactly. Making extra money, so I took it knowing that, "Okay, well, I can save money even faster and, you know, quit and be way more financially comfortable."Zach: I got you. So you were, like, kind of scheming on the low, but, like, you know, for yourself though.Brittani: Yeah. I mean, they do it all of the time with us, with [?]. So I had no regrets, no shame. [laughs]Zach: Oh, no, no. Hey, I'm not shaming you, I'm just chuckling 'cause, you know, you negotiated that deal and you're in the background, you know, you're shaking his hand and you're talking about ["hehehe" sfx, both laugh]Brittani: Yep. So no, like, I literally stayed, like, long enough as well. So the year was special because, you know, within a year you can really do--if you're dedicated and persistent you can do some really good damage--well, not damage, but some good improvement. Zach: No, you said what you said. It's okay. [both laugh]Brittani: And then also with the relocation fee, you know, that's why it's important that you read everything. I read in the contract for the relocation [?] I was given that you need to stay for a year. So yeah, I left within a year, and then--so it really just looked like, you know, within that time period for me working at the other location in Houston, was to just save and grow my team, and then also focus on, like, upcoming products and plan out different projects that we're gonna actually be releasing this year, so I'm really excited about that, but it was a lot of hard work. So at my last company I was literally working, like, sometimes, like, 60, 70 hours a week, 'cause I worked in a very busy industry, but at the same time, you know, having a team was really helpful, and then I just worked crazy hours on the weekends, on my lunch breaks, before work, things like that.Zach: That's a blessing. It's a blessing to find folks who are, you know, engaged and willing to support, right? You know, I think we probably need to have you back just around, like, the principles of building a team and getting started, because I think a lot of times, and I'll say this for podcasting, podcasting is notorious for people, like, starting off really big with a splash and then being done after, like, 2.5 months, because the load of, like, getting content, researching, producing, it can get, like, tiring over time, so, like, a lot of podcasts don't even last a year, you know what I'm saying? Let alone--Brittani: It's a full-time job.Zach: It's a full-time job, and so, you know, it's tough. So that's incredible. I'm so excited. I'm so thankful that you've been able to be on this, on our platform. Now, look, again, Brittani, you're the first LinkedIn Top Voice that we've had on Living Corporate. How does that make you feel?Brittani: You know what? It makes me feel good, but it won't be the last. I believe in you guys.Zach: Ow! Had to do my own Cardi B "ow," goodness gracious. Thank you so much, I appreciate that. And, you know, I've gotta give you a Flex bomb just because you've been dropping casual just--[Flex bomb sfx] It's just ridiculous. Like, it's just incredible, but, like, I'm just so thankful that you're able to be here. Before we let you go, any parting words or shout-outs?Brittani: Yeah. So of course shout-out to my team. My editorial assistant, Alex, she came up with the name Mogul Mob and I love it, so shout-out--Zach: Oh, The Mogul Mob? Yeah, Mogul Mob be up in that WordPress putting content together like [Cardi B "bratbratbratbrat" sfx] You know what I'm saying? We out here.Brittani: [laughs] Yeah, so shout-out to them. They are all amazing, even--like, in their own individual lives they do so many great things, from being startup entrepreneurs, small business owners, freelancers, et cetera. Corporate bosses. They are just amazing. But the only other thing that I want to also shout-out or mention is that we gonna be launching our own online course platform through Mogul Millennial. It's called Mogul Genius, so look out for that. It will be released to a private group of people in October, but after that we'll be releasing it to the general public, so yeah.Zach: Look at you. Come on, now. Well, first of all, again, you know what, just shout-out to y'all. I've gotta go ahead and drop these air horns right here--[air horns sfx]--for The Mogul Millennial and, you know what, for Brittani Hunter. Thank you so much for being on our show. Y'all, that does it for us on the Living Corporate podcast. Make sure you check us out on Twitter @LivingCorp_Pod, on Instagram @LivingCorporate, and on our website at living-corporate--please say the dash--dot com. Now, look, if you have any questions or any shout-outs you'd like to place on the show, you can contact us through the website or you can email us at livingcorporatepodcast@gmail.com, or you can just DM us 'cause the DMs are wide open. Now, look, you can check us out online if you just Google Living Corporate. We're at all of the domains. Brittani, do you know we have every single Living Corporate variation besides Living Corporate dot com?Brittani: That's a smart way to go. A lot of people don't do that. I'm so glad that you do so somebody [can't?] steal it.Zach: Thank you. So we've got livingcorporate.net, livingcorporate.tv, livingcorporate.org, but we don't have livingcorporate.com because Australia has livingcorporate.com. They've got, like, some apartment renting company out there.Brittani: Oh, my God.Zach: I'm saying, right? Now, look, one day though the brand is gonna be brolic enough we're gonna go and we're gonna get that domain. I just don't know when that's gonna be, but it's gonna happen. I'm speaking it.Brittani: They'll [?] forget to pay their renewal.Zach: They'll mess up. Yeah, real talk. Playas mess up, and they'll mess up too. [both laugh] You know what I'm saying? We've talked about Australia a little bit. I'm really trying to be careful 'cause I don't want to create no international beef, but I very much so do want the domain, so I'm trying to figure out, like, what the best strategy is. Maybe you and I could have a conversation offline about that.Brittani: Yeah, yeah. I could tell you a story about that. Zach: [laughs] All right, y'all. Well, look, this has been Zach Nunn, and you've been listening to Brittani Hunter, CEO and founder of The Mogul Millennial. Until next time. Peace.

Zach welcomes Cognizant's Maureen Greene James to the show, and she shares what she thinks are the biggest frustrations in the diversity and inclusion space today. In addition to speaking about her unique role as an inclusion leader who's jointly focused on leadership development, she also offers up three points of advice for executives looking to create an inclusive workforce.Connect with Maureen on LinkedIn and Twitter, and check out Cognizant's website, Twitter, and Instagram!Check out our website by clicking here: Living CorporateTRANSCRIPTZach: What's up, y'all? It's Zach with Living Corporate. Now, look, you know what we do, right? I come on here, I say, "What's up, y'all?" And I say it in this smooth way, right? And then I say we're a platform that amplifies the voices of black and brown people at work, but just for those of you who don't know, we are a platform that amplifies the voices of black and brown people at work. Now, if you're new to the space you may say, "Well, how do you actually do that?" Let me tell you how we do that. We do that by having pointed, accessible, and real, authentic interviews with black and brown executives, leaders, movers and shakers, influencers, public servants, educators, activists, creatives, artists, you know what I'm saying? With everybody. And we also interview non-black and brown folks too, for those who are fragile and feel not involved. We got y'all too. You're welcome as long as you are an advocate for black and brown people. And so, look, we do this, and today is no different. We actually have a great guest like we do every episode, but I'm saying this episode really for real. 'Cause sometimes I have a guest and y'all send me messages like, "Okay," but no, but really, this time a super, super dope guest. Our guest is Maureen Greene James. What's up? Sound Man, give me some air horns right here. [air horns sfx] Okay, thank you. Now, look, Maureen, she is an HR professional whose background, experiences and expertise include HR leadership, talent development, diversity & inclusion, employee engagement, communications AND change management. Maureen serves by bringing expertise and experiences in HR leadership, diversity & inclusion, talent and leadership development, employee engagement and change management to Cognizant, serving as the leader--y'all, check it out. Whoa, whoa, whoa. The leader of Diversity & Leadership Development for North America. So all of the states, right? Including the little states on the side. For those of y'all who weren't too good at geography, Alaska and Hawaii. Those spots too, right? She is in charge of all of that, right? Now, to further enhance Cognizant’s commitment to diversity, she plays a key role in the company’s efforts around executive talent & leadership development while staying focused on building a diverse, high performing pipeline of strong women leaders. Maureen has been recognized for her professional accomplishments in Black Enterprise magazine--come on, Black Enterprise--and in 2014 received the “Most Powerful and Influential Woman Award” by the National Diversity Council. I mean, come on. I mean, what can we really say here? I gotta drop at least one Flex bomb. [Flex bomb sfx] Maureen, welcome to the show. How are you doing?Maureen: I am great, Zachary. How are you?Zach: I am really, really well. So, you know, a little bit of behind-the-scenes tea, I'm really glad we're able to sit down. We've been so busy.Maureen: We have. There's been a lot of stuff going on. I've been doing some travel for work. But, you know, it's all good. I'm staying busy, staying focused on all things inclusion and diversity within my organization, as well as, you know, within other organizations that I have the opportunity to be in front of and share my knowledge and expertise [with].Zach: Okay. Well, hold on. So you say you've been traveling, you know, and again, you said your organization as well as, you know, other organizations, so... ["ow" sfx] You know, can you talk a little bit about some of the other organizations that you've been able to share your knowledge and expertise with?Maureen: Sure. So I often have the opportunity to really utilize my platform and my voice to speak with other organizations at conferences and inclusion summits. I've had the opportunity to be in front of MetLife as an organization just to talk about diversity and inclusion. I actually hosted a panel around inclusion not too long ago. I also had the opportunity to work with PwC, which is an organization that obviously I'm familiar with because that's where I was for the past I would say about 11.5 years. So I do spend a lot of time really focusing on diversity and inclusion, obviously within Cognizant, but also making sure that I am sharing the knowledge and expertise as well as learning from other organizations too around what we're doing, what we're all doing in this space to really build an inclusive work environment.Zach: Well, I mean, I just think it's incredible, and that's why we're so excited to have you on the show today. So, you know, I gave a bit of an introduction and we talked about--and just now you talked about some of the speaking you've been doing. I talked about your professional background. But for those of us who don't know you, is there anything else you think you'd like to share about yourself?Maureen: Yeah. So for anyone that doesn't know me, [know] that I'm a really passionate--I don't like to say HR leader, even though that's probably what it says in my bio, but I'm a people leader, you know? Like, I like to get in touch with the people. I like to know what's going on with the people within an organization and what makes them tick, what makes them get engaged with the organization that they work for, and what allows them to feel like they are working within an organization that has a very strong culture of belonging? So those are the things that are, you know, really important to me and the things that I'm passionate about professionally. I recently had the opportunity to speak at an inclusion summit for an organization called ATG - Advanced Technology Group - and, you know, one of the questions that they asked me was around, you know, "So what are the things that people don't know about you?" And I said, "Well, you know, there's some things you don't know about me. I like to kayak. I like to read. I like to learn. I like to hang with my family." And of course my favorite thing in the world is I like to spend time on the beach. But I try to mix all of that, the business and the pleasure together, so taht I have what I like to call work-life--like, some kind of work-life equality. Not necessarily balance, because there's no such thing as work-life balance.Zach: Listen. Now, we could have a whole 'nother podcast about that. I sometimes--[both laugh]--'cause it's not true, right? I think--ugh, anyway... no, no, I'm gonna go ahead and say it! [both laugh] So I sometimes talk about, like, work-life blend, right? And I've even had, like--this was back when I was, like, 23, 23 or 24. I wrote an article on LinkedIn about--I said work-life balance is a myth, 'cause it is, right? Like, we live in a capitalistic society, and the rate of pay has not gone up with the rate of work. So whether you want to accept it or not, right, like, you are--people are now working more than they ever have before and not getting paid commensurate with just the hours. Not even talking about, like, the thought leadership or the quality, just the hours of work that you put in. People at large are not getting paid for/in direct with that, right? So this idea of work-life balance, like, I know the workforce of the future is this whole new topic around, like, just how people are gonna be working differently, because this cannot continue at the rate that it is, and so this whole idea of work-life balance, like you said, I just--I don't think it's real either. So that's awesome though.Maureen: It doesn't exist. Yeah, doesn't exist.Zach: It doesn't exist. And, you know, people will call you pessimistic or whatever, but it's not. It's like, it doesn't--that's not necessarily good or bad, it's just like--but you want to be honest, that way you can actually start creating some boundaries and kind of, like, just start determining what your atmosphere is gonna be. Maureen: Exactly.Zach: Yes, ma'am. So look, let's just get into it, okay? Now, with Trump as president, I'd say we have a stronger focus on diversity and inclusion than ever before, but I'd argue that we've seen a sort of colonization of space where discussions around race are dismissed as elementary, right? Like, gender is amplified and diversity of thought is a north star. So what, if anything, do you think can be done to include more black and brown folks, particularly black and brown women, in these spaces?Maureen: Yeah. So that's a great question, Zachary, and one of the things I see is that when we're talking about diversity and inclusion, we have to really be thinking more broadly around "What does the diversity lens look like?" Right? So there was a point in time when the diversity lens looked like it was all about race and ethnicity, right? And so now women are a bigger and much larger part of the conversation, as it should be, but then there's also the opportunity for us to really be thinking more broadly around, like you say, black and brown folks and black and brown women. So we know that at leadership levels within organizations we don't see enough of us, but there are some things I think that can be done to ensure that we really have a bigger seat at that table. For example, I'd love to see black and brown women really put themselves in positions to be front and center, to be leaders, and that sometimes means for us stepping a little bit out of our comfort zone, right, and putting ourselves in places and in opportunities and on projects where we may not necessarily have every single requirement that let's say is in the quote-unquote job description, but we have a good percentage of it, and so then why wouldn't we go for it? And that's typically something that women on a whole don't necessarily do. And so just think about it from a black and brown perspective. We do it even less because we feel like we shouldn't be doing that, we shouldn't put ourselves front and center for some of those things. So I think that we need to make sure that we're putting ourselves front and center. I also think that we need to be seeking out mentors and sponsors, and the reason I mention both is because there's a difference, right? So a mentor is somebody who's going--you're going to go to for advice and counsel on your career and is it going the right direction and that kind of thing, and people need that. Everybody needs that, especially if you're an emerging manager within an organization, but then if you're at a higher--a little bit of a higher level but not necessarily at that C-Suite level, then you need a sponsor. You need somebody who is going to talk about you when you leave the room in a really good way. You know, not dishing all your business, but talk about you in a really good way to say, "I know that Maureen can do this because I have seen her do XYZ. I know that she can win that client over because she has the skills to do this based on the work that she's done with a similar client, and I have been privy to that." So you really need to have that sponsor who's going to pound the table for you and say, "Hey, this is the woman that you need front and center." So I don't want to spend a ton of time on it, I mean, 'cause I could go on for days, but those are some of the things that I think are really critical for black and brown women to focus on. Zach: So let's do this then, right? And it's interesting 'cause I was just--you know, you see a lot of these thinkpieces out lately, but I was just actually listening in on Dr. Janice, right, and she was talking about how leaning in doesn't always work, right, because, like, what do you do--so, like, we just had you, Maureen Greene James, inclusion and diversity extraordinaire, leader of people, speaker, snatcher of edges, you know what I'm saying? You out here. You just gave us great wisdom and insight on what should happen and what we should do, but what happens when--first of all, how do we do that? How do we have those conversations and put ourselves out there? And then what advice then would you give to the people who are in power, right, which is basically white men and women, on how they can be effective sponsors. Like, how does that happen?Maureen: That's a really good question. So advice I would give to people who are looking for sponsors, what I would say is that you look for someone who doesn't even remotely look like you or sound like you, walk or talk like you, and that's a hard thing to say, right? That's a hard thing for somebody to get their mind wrapped around. So I'll give you a quick story. So when I was working for PwC, there was a point in time where I was looking for someone to really--I wasn't looking for a mentor. I was truly looking for a sponsor, right? Somebody that I knew was going to give it to me straight, that was gonna tell me "Yeah, Maureen, you're not doing a really good job at this," or "Yeah, you're doing great at this, and here's what else you can do to improve in that particular area." And I was also looking for somebody to talk about me behind closed doors when I wasn't in the room. And so I really decided to put myself completely outside of my comfort zone, and I went and had a conversation with somebody who I previously did not necessarily get along with, and I had the conversation for two reasons: one, I wanted to understand what it was about this individual that, for whatever reason, we just rubbed edges. So I needed to understand that just for my own personal understanding, and two, I wanted to understand it from the standpoint of saying, "Okay, so now that I have an understanding of what that is, is this the person that could really be my sponsor?" And so I invited him out to lunch, and we had a great conversation. We talked about that one moment where we bumped heads. It was a few years before, but he remembered it very well and I definitely did not forget it, and at the end of that conversation I simply said to him, "Here's what I'm looking for, and I would like you to be this person to help move me along in my career, to be that person who is going to step in and really be that person pounding the table for me," and he was completely taken aback and surprised but elated at the same time that I asked. And when I tell you, Zachary, that he was probably one of the best individuals that I have had work with me in my career. He was straightforward with me when he needed to be, and he was at the table, you know, singing my praises one, but two really talking about what it was that I could do, how I deliver, how he's seen me deliver. So I really think it's important that we step outside of our comfort zones and we don't look for people who look like us or think like us or who have worked in the same organizations or even in the same industry and sector. This person didn't work in HR. Did work for the company, but didn't work in HR, didn't have an HR understanding, didn't necessarily want it, and that's why they were so critical, because they can give you a different perspective, something that you don't yourself necessarily see because you're in that space all of the time. So that's one of the things I would definitely say is critical. Step outside your comfort zone and look for somebody different.Zach: I love that. And so then on the other side, right, so when you put yourself out there, what advice would you give to your non-melanated, right, counterparts, on how they can make themselves available to be sponsors?Maureen: [laughs] I love "non-melanated." [both laugh] Zach: You like that, huh?Maureen: I love that. I love that. So one of the things I would say is--so I'm going to, you know, really try and step into their shoes for a second, even though that's not necessarily an easy thing to do. I would say it's very difficult for them to feel as though they can put themselves out there. And so the one piece of advice I would give them is just get to know someone. At the end of the day, Zachary, we're all human beings, you know what I'm saying? I mean, we do a lot of stuff alike, okay? We're really not that different, and I really think it's important that we are encouraging our non-melanated counterparts to feel like they can have a conversation with us, but to make them feel like that we have to treat them the way we want to be treated. So in other words, we can't necessarily roll up on them with any kind of, you know, negative thinking around how we think they're going to treat us or how we think they're going to approach us. Just have a conversation with them like you would anybody else. And honestly, you'd be surprised at how open and willing they are to really working with you, but sometimes they feel like they need to be given permission to know you. And I want to go back to something that you said earlier with Trump as president. I think that has created a lot of friction in terms of the way that people just approach each other on a daily basis, right? You know, non-melanated people may think that they can't approach black and brown people, right, or that they shouldn't, but before Trump did we really think that? Did we really have that going on, or were we comfortable just kind of saying, you know, "What's up? Can we talk?" Zach: I wasn't, but, you know, I do believe that it's definitely been more heightened now, right? Like, I think it all depends, right, on your background, right, on your story, kind of where you came from. I know just based on--so my family, coming from the South and, like, horrific experiences that they had, you know, they've really been comfortable, like, in certain situations, and in experiences I've had as well and just in my life. Not even just singing my parents' song. There's always been a bit of hesitation. I definitely believe though--to your point I believe is that it's definitely been--like, it's way more pointed now than it's been in a while, yeah.Maureen: Yeah, which is very unfortunate, because I think people--you know, most people are inherently good and really want to help and want to engage, you know, but I think that, you know, they don't necessarily feel like they can or they should, and so they don't, and so it's almost like they want permission from us. And I think we, black and brown people, need to give a little permission. And it's hard. In this day and time, that's a really hard thing to do. Zach: It is, right? 'Cause, like, there's so much emotional labor, and I think--I know that you know this, but I think it's a huge blind spot, and I think it actually goes into our next question, which is around, like, D&I programs and organizations when they think about diversity and inclusion. I don't think that organizations are effectively factoring in, like, just the emotional labor that goes into being other in majority-white spaces, nor do I think that people really understand--so, like, just black tax, right? Like, we're recording this on the day of Amber Guyger's sentencing, right? And, like, black and brown folks who have been looking at the trials, specifically black people, looking at the trial and, like, seeing this person who was convicted of murder, so... so okay, she did murder this person. [She was] crying, like, crying fake tears--crying what many people felt were fake tears, and, like, that could be triggering to a lot of different folks, the body cam footage being released and, like--so, like, just dealing with all of that and the PTSD-like symptoms that just seeing black death or constant coversage of black death causes. Like, those people still have to go to work, right? Those people still have to interact with people who may shrug their shoulders at that stuff. So I just think, like--to your point about it being hard, I think that it's really easy to undermine or dismiss--I don't think that you can overstate how hard it is to make yourself available. I'm not saying that you shouldn't or that you can't, but I'm just saying, like, I wish that--for me, right, so I know I'm interviewing you, but this is me just talking to you as someone who is in a position, right, as an executive, I wish that organizations would be more thoughtful to that, right? And I think there's just so much work to do. I'm curious to know though what you believe organizations could still be--are still missing when they talk about diversity and inclusion and you have these conversations on the big stages and also in the smaller rooms. Like, what are some themes that you're seeing around organizations and kind of what they still could be developing when it comes to their programming?Maureen: Yeah. So that's a great question. I think some organizations are doing a fairly good job, and then there's some organizations that are, you know--they're trying to get there. They're doing--I'll say they're doing the best they can, right? So one of the things I think is very commendable and courageous is having those bold and courageous conversations, right? I think that that is something that is innovative, it's fresh. It invites everyone to the table to have the deep discussion. At times, they can get really real and dig deeper than anyone wants to go, and they can create emotions out of people that no one expected, but that's necessary to have an understanding of what everyone on all sides of the coin across the entire spectrum of diversity is thinking and feeling. I think where organizations fail--so organizations that do that, I think they're doing great, but I think where those same organizations fail is that after they do that work, what happens next? So what are you supposed to do with those conversations? What are the expectations for the people that are sitting in as a part of those conversations? "Okay, great. We got it." "Okay, I understand how you feel," because this woman was just, you know, convicted of murder. She's gotten 10 years. And yeah, I understand that, but what am I supposed to do with this? There needs to be an afterwards. There needs to be an understanding of "Okay, so here's the way I feel, but here's the reason why I feel this way." And then there should be opportunities for people to bring that into the thinking around how we work, how we hire people in organizations, right? So are we thinking about talent of all colors, or are we thinking about talent of just one color? So in other words, you have to take the conversation from just, you know, engaging people and saying, "Yeah, here's what we did. We brought everybody together. We had a really good conversation, and now the organization is better for it." The organization is okay, but it's not better for it unless the people--unless everybody in that conversation walks away with, "Okay, what can we do next?" And that's the thing I think is missing.Zach: No, I agree with that, right? And I think--so when you talk about D&I programming as a whole, like, it's just not restorative. It's not restorative, and it's also not policy-driven. It's not data-driven, and it's not results-oriented by means of policies being updated. So, like, all of the things you just said--so okay, we had the conversation. Cool. "This is how we feel." Okay. "Now this is what we're gonna do about it, and this is how we, as an organization, are gonna change, and this is what accountability is gonna look like, in light of the conversation and the insights that we gathered." Like, that then makes the emotional labor worth something, but, like, if you're putting in emotional labor and not getting anything in return, like, not only is that, like, exhausting on the inset, but then it's defeating on the outset, right? So that's huge, and again, it really leads us into the next question. Okay, so you're the first--so we've interviewed some folks, right? I'm not a name-dropper. You can go on Living Corporate's podcast--ow--y'all check it out. Y'all can see the people that we've talked to. And we've talked to folks who have been in, like, these global or national positions around inclusion and diversity, but I think that you're the first person we've spoken too who is, like, in their title integrating inclusion with leadership. And so can we talk about--yeah, so that's pretty cool, and I believe that's, like, the next--I really believe that's the next level or the next phase when you talk about kind of reclaiming D&I. I do see, like, more black women and black and brown people being in these positions of inclusion and diversity much more than I have in the past, I don't know, seven or eight years, right? I've seen an uptick. So when I was talking about, like, kind of decolonizing D&I and [I] talked about, like, reclaiming the space, that's part of what I mean. So can we talk a little bit about how you've led the strategy for Cognizant to drive the intersection of those two spaces, and then also what you're continuing to do?Maureen: Sure. So at Cognizant I've had the opportunity to, as you've mentioned, be on both sides, right? So diversity and inclusion as well as leadership development. So within Cognizant, the global leadership development team is really focused on growing leaders at the director and above level, and within doing that it's also focused on making sure that our people at those levels are very diverse across the board. What I would say, Zachary, is that we have a long way to go, right? I don't think we're different from many other organizations out there. We do have a very long way to go in terms of "How do we continue to build this inclusive strategy specifically for our directors and above?" And so while I am focused on everybody across the organization regardless of level, obviously, my leadership development role is only focused on our directors and above, but I make sure to keep a diversity and inclusion lens on that population of people because when individuals see diversity at the higher levels of the organization, it attracts more people, it allows us to retain more diverse people, because now they're able to see levels and opportunities and projects and roles that they can aspire to, and it helps us to grow and develop that population. So it helps to grow the diversity that we do have at the manager and below level into those leadership levels. So it's--we like to say it's a cyclical win-win, right? The attract, retain, and develop pillars, but what I will say to you is that our focus, primarily for the past year and a half or since I've been there, has been around gender diversity. And so I bring a different lens to it, because I'm not thinking about just, you know, "Let's just bring any women in." I'm thinking about "What do the women look like? Where do they come from? Where have they been? What industries? What sectors?" All of those things, but I'm really also making sure that we're building into this diverse lens. So we have some black and brown people, you know, at the higher levels, so we make sure that we're incorporating individuals with disabilities at those levels, right? All of those things. So we're incorporating our LGBTQ+ community. We need to be able to have people at those levels who are going to be th epeople that other individuals in the organization aspire to or other individuals outside of the organization see and now say to themselves "Well, if So-and-so can be a leader in this organization, there's an opportunity for me here. There's an opportunity for me to start somewhere." So that's what the strategy has really been built around, you know? Making sure that 1. we're focused on gender diversity, but we're looking at it across a lens of all of the components of inclusion.Zach: You're bringing intersectionality to the table.Maureen: Absolutely. All day every day. All day every day.Zach: And I think, Maureen, like, for me--everything you said, of course, 100% spot on - I think what organizations don't realize is, for me anyways, right--when I come into organizations, and I've been in a few different places, so I've seen a lot. Like, I've seen a variety of cultures, but I always--when I come in--I consider myself about, like, an A- employee, okay? I feel like I'm great. I'm not, like, the best, but I'm very, very, very good. 'Cause I have other things going on. I've got Living Corporate. I ain't got time... like, I got other stuff, but with all that being said--[both laugh]Maureen: I hear you.Zach: You know what I'm saying. You know, I'ma keep that extra plus for me, but my point is I'm a very strong employee, so when I come into organizations, you know, I have aspirations, I have goals. I typically, without even, like, actively trying to do it, I just end up kind of zooming in on, like, the senior-most black people, and I look and see how they're treated, and I use that as a gauge to feel like "Okay, let me just think. Okay, so this person has a doctorate and an MBA, international experience, interned with the UN, can speak three languages, two more than me, and they're still being treated like this." So what does that then mean for my prospects as someone who's looking to build a five, six, seven-year roadmap here, right? So 100% right in that the treatment--how you treat... I mean, people see those things, right? So let's pause for a second though, 'cause I want to go back to something you said. You talked about the director level, director and up. Have you noticed a pattern of black and brown folks kind of, like, climbing a ladder and getting to the director level or, like, senior manager level even, and just kind of stalling out?Maureen: Yes.Zach: What's the reason behind that?Maureen: Yeah, I wouldn't say--and that's an every organization thing. It's definitely not, you know, a Cognizant thing or--Zach: Exclusive, yeah.Maureen: Yeah, yeah. No, definitely not. What I would say the issue behind that is that people in those roles tend to stall out because the higher you go within the organization, a lot of times you don't see people who look like you, so the people who have the power--Zach: And social capital.Maureen: Yes, to make the decisions to therefore promote a black or brown person into those high level roles aren't necessarily there, so they're looking through one lens, and their lens is typically people they know, people they've worked on projects with before, people they went to school with, people that they're in the same social circles with, those kinds of things, and black and brown people aren't necessarily always in those places. And so I think that that is part of the problem. I think the other problem is we, as black and brown people, sometimes tend to hurt ourselves because we don't necessarily put ourselves in those positions. I can speak from experience. I did it to myself and, you know, almost derailed my career years ago when I decided I didn't want to attend an event that I was invited too. But I responded and said I would, and then at the last minute [I] said, "You know what? No one is going to notice if I don't show up," and so I declined it at the last minute, and sure enough next day I walk into the office and the person who invited me says, "Maureen, we missed you last night." Now, this was not someone who looked me. It was somebody who I thought really wasn't even paying attention to me, but obviously he was, and I made the really poor executive decision to not go because, and you heard me say it, I thought I was not going to be missed. "No one is going to notice if I'm not there." And this man--I don't even know if he even remembers this story, and I always say one of these days I need to remind him, but this individual, when he invited me, he invited me for a reason. So that's why I say we can derail ourselves. You know, if you get an invitation like that--and this was a senior leader--take advantage of that, you know? Absolutely. Don't ever think--and that's the other thing. Don't ever think that people aren't paying attention to you. They are. They are, especially if you are doing great work. Like you said about yourself, you're an A- employee, which I'm sure you're an A++. Even if you remotely think you're an A- player, somebody is paying attention to you, you know? So I think we need to do a better job of putting ourselves in places where we can be seen, but that all goes back to the point of being on those high-visibiliity projects and how do we get there. There has to be somebody at the top that's pounding the table for us to get there. So it's kind of cyclical. It's kind of like you're almost, like, stuck in a...Zach: A loop.Maureen: Yes. Yeah. It's a challenge.Zach: No, it is. It is. Now, you know, we've talked a little bit about programming. We kind of had a meta discussion about D&I, but then, like, I'm curious, right, from a leadership perspective, if you were to give, like, five key traits of inclusive leaders, like, five key behaviors, like, what would they be?Maureen: That's a good question. I would say definitely someone who--an inclusive leader is someone who's a good listener, and I don't mean someone who's just gonna kind of listen and say, "Uh-huh, uh-huh, uh-huh. Okay, next," but someone who's really going to listen to what you have to say, someone who's able to replay that back to you, right? Recap that and say, "Okay, I understand. So tell me, what would you like me to do next? How would you like me to proceed?" So not just listen, but then understand. Get to understand what needs to happen next. Second thing is be a great giver of feedback. It's really, really important to give feedback, because feedback really, truly is a gift, but it's also important to get feedback. So I always encourage leaders that I work with not to feel like they're--because they're in a quote-unquote "leadership role" that they're just supposed to be the people that give feedback. No, it has to be reciprocal, and they have to not only ask for feedback, but then they have to ask follow-up questions so that they can understand what is it that they're doing well or not doing so well so that they themselves can change and evolve their own behaviors. The third thing I would say is an inclusive leader should be somebody who's able to pay it forward. So be able to reach back, reach to the sides, reach wherever and pull somebody along, take somebody along for the journey that they're on, because it helps that individual learn and grow in their own respect, and, you know, I always tell leaders, "You didn't get here by yourself." Let's just be real about some things. You took the same journey that now this individual behind you is also trying to take. So do the right thing, and if you've got somebody that you know wants to move in the same career path or maybe they want to do something different but could use your guidance and expertise, pull them along with you. The fourth thing I would say is an inclusive leader should be somebody who is able to truly bring a team together, and, you know, bring them together--I'm not saying bring them together for lunch. I'm talking about bring them together so that they have a good understanding of who they are as a team, what are the team goals, what are they striving for, and most importantly, as a team, understand what each of them individually are able to contribute and bring to the table, because it is the individual nuances that we all bring to an organization or a team that helps us to be a successful team. That's how we create inclusive products, inclusive services for our clients, is by bringing those innovative and inclusive voices to the table. So an inclusive leader should definitely be somebody who is able to bring a team together. And then the last thing I would say is that an inclusive leader needs to be very mindful of the fact that they are the ones who have the ear of the C-Suite, and so they need to be individuals who can listen and hear what's going on on the ground--so across their teams and other teams--and be able to articulate that and bubble that up to the top so that any issues or concerns that may be rising are things that they're able to squash before it becomes a bigger issue. They've got to listen in on what's happening at the ground level and be able to help manage, to help do some kind of change management or navigate the conversation so that it doesn't become a bigger issue. But if it's getting there, they should be the ones who are able to bubble it up to the top and then say, "Okay, so what can we do to mitigate this?" I think that's really it. Zach: Wow. Yeah, no, absolutely. Thank you so much. You know, you're just dropping bombs, dropping coins, as it were. Maureen: [laughs] Coins, yep. Mm-hmm.Zach: It's really helpful. I was trying not to cut you off 'cause I had, like, a couple of these... [Mario coin sfx] But I was like, "Let me just let her finish." [both laugh]Maureen: I'm sorry, I'm just going on forever.Zach: No, no, no. It's great. No, it's absolutely great. This has been a wonderful conversation, and thank you so much for hanging out with us. I know we went a little bit long. Before we let you go, any parting words, shout-outs?Maureen: Parting words and shout-outs? Parting words are, you know, just be the best human being that you can truly be, you know? Never take for granted where you are, because again, you didn't get here on your own. Really, really important to reach back and help others. And then any shout-outs I would give are simply to all of the people who are in the position, as you are, Zachary, to help get these kinds of messages out. Kudos to you, because this is not easy, you know? Doing what you do is not easy. Having these kinds of deep and courageous conversations isn't easy, so kudos to you, and then shout-outs to all of the people who are driving diversity and inclusion within their organizations, because, you know, we've got some work to do. People love to say to me, you know, "Well, you know, in your role, you're gonna have a job forever. It's job security." Here's the thing - I'm not sure I want to live in a world where the need to have a diversity and inclusion leader is job security, because that means that we are--that means two things. One, the world's continuing to evolve and, you know, the components of diversity continue to change. That's good. But two, it means that we're not doing everything that we could and should be doing to make this a more inclusive and global environment, and so I don't know if I want that job security. I want it to be where it's just very organic, you know? That we're not thinking about, "Well, you know, how do we hire black and brown people? Where do we go to get them?" No! It shouldn't be that way, and I know I've probably gone on way too long, but shout-outs to you, shout-outs to my peeps who are doing this day in and day out and are leading the charge right along with me, so.Zach: Come on, now. Let me get these air horns right here for that. [air horns sfx, both laugh]Maureen: Love that. Love it.Zach: Man, this has just been great, Maureen. Thank you so much. And listen, y'all, that does it for us on the Living Corporate podcast. You make sure you check us out on Twitter at @LivingCorp_Pod, Instagram at @LivingCorporate, and then, you know, you've got our website living-corporate--please say the dash--dot com. We also have livingcorporate.co, livingcorporate.org, livingcorporate.tv, livingcorporate.net. Maureen, we have all of the Living Corporates except livingcorporate.com. We have all of 'em, you know? You know, it's market dissemination. We're really out here. We're trying to make sure we get them SEO clicks.Maureen: Do your thing.Zach: Come on, now. We're trying to. Now, listen, y'all, y'all hear these conversations that we have. If y'all ever have questions y'all want to send in and, like, have us, us being the hosts or our guests, answer them, just send 'em on in. YOu know, DM us, email us at livingcorporatepodcast@gmail.com, you know, and we can just get it poppin' like that. Now, look, if you can't remember all of the different places I just said or where we are and where we're at and what we're doing, just Google Living Corporate. We out here like that. It's been, like, 130 something odd episodes, so we're now at the point where if you just Google Living Corporate, we'll pop up, okay? So you check us out, and until next time, this has been Zach, and you've been listening to Maureen Greene James, D&I leader for North America at Cognizant. Until next time, y'all. Peace.

Zach speaks with Lionel Lee, Zillow Group's Head of Diversity Engagement, and they discuss his unique personal career journey up to this point. Lionel details what influence and coalition-building look like in his position, and he also shares some of the things that he's been able to do at Zillow that he believes have helped to improve the sense of belonging and inclusiveness for black and brown folks in the workplace.Connect with Lionel on LinkedIn!TRANSCRIPTSheneisha: Hey, y'all. Sheneisha here with Living Corporate. As you know, we're about having real talk in a corporate world. With that in mind, before we get into this amazing discussion with Lionel Lee, we want to let you know this content makes mention of violence, which may be upsetting, so if you're listening with some little ones, discretion is advised. Zach: What's up, y'all? It's Zach with the Living Corporate podcast, and of course you know what we do. We have interviews, conversations, right, that serve to amplify the voices of black and brown folks at work. And what do I mean by that? I mean we typically have black and brown folks, leaders, executives, creatives, entrepreneurs, you name it, on the show, having real conversations about real topics, and today is no different. We actually have with us today a very special guest. I'm very excited to speak with this person. I've been in contact with him for a little while, and I'm excited just to, like, get him on the show, 'cause, like, we've been texting, and then we talk on LinkedIn, and then, you know, we've been trying to coordinate. Even today we were coordinating back and forth. Lionel Lee. Lionel Lee is the head of diversity engagement at Zillow Group. He provides career development support to underrepresented employees and works with executives to develop equity and belonging policies to improve employee experiences. He also serves as a connecter between employees and community organizations. Prior to joining Zillow Group, he worked in talent acquisition, sourcing candidates across technology and banking industries. Okay, so really quick y'all, all of that to say he's by the people, for the people, you see what I'm saying? Okay. Helping communities has always been a constant throughout his life. Lionel has created and developed community groups that promote health and wellness. He's worked with HIV/AIDS education groups, substance abuse/addiction organizations, as well as health groups for youth. Lionel immigrated to the United States from Korea at age 5. His experiences growing up in south-central Los Angeles and later in the projects of Honolulu, Hawaii--I'm gonna ask a question about that in a little bit--helped nurture his passion for community building. With all that being said, Lionel, welcome to the show. How are you doing?Lionel: I'm doing well, man. Thank you. Appreciate it.Zach: Now, look, you know, of course I've got all of these questions for you and everything, but the first thing I gotta ask - you talked about the projects of Honolulu. Hawaii has projects?Lionel: Yeah. Oh, yeah. Yeah, Honolulu has projects, and growing up there in the '70s and partial '80s, yeah, it was kind of rough, 'cause most people don't know about that, 'cause what they see about Honolulu and hear about Honolulu is it's just a paradise, but it's not really a paradise for all. You know, the level of poverty there, still to this day, is [amazing?], but back then it was like--where I grew up, in Kalihi--Kalihi is a town right outside of Waikiki, and it's--the projects are called Kuhio Park Terrace. We call it KPT, or Killer Park Terrace. Kill People Today. That's what it was, and I lived on the 16th floor, and I had to actually walk up the stairs to get to my apartment because there was a young lady that got her head cut off in the elevator, so the parents and kids, you know, catch the elevator. And then, you know, you have the same stuff that you have in a lot of different projects. You know, you have a lot of drug abuse, and, you know, you have people defecating in the stairwells. So that was the smell you walked into every single day. The crazy thing is that the dude that cut off the woman's head lived two doors down from me. And he kept it. Kept the head. Zach: What?!?!!!!!!????????????Lionel: He kept the head. But, um...Zach: Whoa, whoa, whoa. I'm sorry. Wait, wait, wait. You said he kept the head?Lionel: He kept the head. He was--he was a Cambodian dude, and he was just mentally disturbed, you know? He just had some serious stuff going on, and he kept the head, and we found out, like, you know, two weeks after it had happened, you know? That was--it was a very different kind of place. Very violent. You can still look up--actually, you can go on YouTube and look up videos from Kuhio Park Terrace, and they'll show you videos of what it's like at KPT to this day.Zach: To this day. That is--that is--wow, that is shocking. I'ma tell you, you know, Lionel, in your short 3 minutes of being on the Living Corporate podcast, you have given us the most gangsta introduction we've ever had. And I'm not making light of anything. I'm just taken--I'm very taken aback by this. Wow.Lionel: Yeah, I don't have the typical--you know, I don't have the pedigree of someone that's in my position, definitely. I'm not--you know, I just wasn't raised like that. I wasn't--you know, I didn't think I was gonna go to college. I didn't go to college. I didn't get a degree. You know, I had to work and do all of that kind of stuff. It's just I was given certain opportunities and took advantage of every single one, you know? Made the very best that I could, and I've always had a tremendous work ethic, you know? Just, you know, been out of my house since I was 17 years old. I've lived in my car for, like, three days, just so I can be out here, you know, just doing my thing. You know, just doing my thing and just trying to keep it moving.Zach: Wow. Well, kind of to start there, let's talk a little bit about that. So you've started on that path, but kind of talk to us about your journey from Hawaii to the head of diversity and engagement at Zillow. What did that look like?Lionel: I was a gogo dancer at one time. That was pretty weird. I've done everything, man. Like, I can do stuff around my house--like, right now I'm remodeling my house, and my kids will be like, "Where'd you learn how to do that?" And I'm like, "Man, it wasn't nothing about learning. I just had to survive." Zach: Wait, wait, wait. So let's take a step back. You said you were--you were a what dancer?Lionel: I was a gogo dancer for a little bit. [Zach laughs] Yeah, when I was, like, young, you know, and that kind of stuff. So I was raised extremely religious. My grandfather is a Baptist minister, and I was raised in the church, so we didn't go out and do that kind of stuff a lot, you know? And I went to, like, school dances every once in a while, and I always liked to dance, so as soon as I got out of my house and, you know, I didn't have nobody telling me what I could and could not do, you know, I got caught up in the dance club scene for a while, and I was going there a lot, and the dude that owned the club, you know, he asked me one day if, you know, I'd want to just come in and, you know, get paid for it, right? But it was like--I don't know if you remember. I don't know how old you are, but--Zach: 29.Lionel: There was this one dance that I was really good at. It was The Prep. I don't know if you remember what The Prep is.Zach: Nah, what's The Prep?Lionel: It's just a dance that, you know, like, a lot of black folks did, you know, back then. You know, I'd have to show it to you in order for you to know what it was, but people around my age group, they know what that dance is, and I was really good at it. You can be extremely creative with it, you know? So the dude just kind of, you know--and I didn't paid, like, a lot. It was--like, that was my part-time gig. My full-time gig was, you know, managing the Church's Fried Chicken, which was down the street from the club, right? So after work at Church's Fried Chicken I would shoot over there, and back then they would throw some, you know, neon sweater or some shit on me, and then I'd get on there and, you know, do my thing. [both laugh] So yeah, that's a snippet of my background, but the way that I got into where I'm at now is--the funny thing is I met a dude on a basketball court, right, like, when I was in my late twenties, and it was one of those stereotypical things, you know? I got into a fight with this dude on the basketball court, you know? Like, you know, you get into a fight on the basketball court, they find out you can fight, and then all of a sudden everybody wants to be your friend, right? So dude wanted to be my friend. He was a white dude, and I had never had too much interaction with white people honestly, and definitely not on a personal, you know, like, friendship level. That just wasn't the way I was raised. So I was kind of cautious, and at that time I worked for an organization called Street Outreach Services, and it was an HIV/AIDS prevention organization. It was led by this amazing sister from Brooklyn. Her name was Amani Wood. She recently passed, like, a couple years ago, and I consider her one of the strongest individuals I've ever met and was lucky enough to have her as a mentor for a very large portion of my life. But anyway, she and I were working together, and then I came up with this crazy idea that what we should be doing is we should be documenting, you know, crack addicts and crack dealers under the age of 18, 'cause that's a group that we were not capturing. So the city of Seattle liked the idea. My organization liked the idea. So I ended up doing that for about 2.5 years. So I was going into crack houses and stuff, like, you know, at 3:00 a.m., you know, 4:00 a.m., and dealing with a whole bunch of kids, and I dealt with the kids--I mean, I had one sister, her name was Beautiful, literally, and she was 13 years old, you know? She was 13 years old with a baby and she was a crack addict, and she was a crack dealer. So, you know, I had to deal with that, and that kind of stuff is emotionally extremely taxing, and the--I just couldn't do it as--I couldn't put as much of myself into it as I was, so I was starting to get burnt out, and dude--you know, he was a recruiter, this white dude that I had met, right? He was like, "Hey, you ever thought about, like, recruiting?" And I was like, "I don't even know what that is, man." And he brought me up to his office to show me what he did, and, like, a lot of young black men and young black women and kids that come from, you know, lesser economic areas, you know, when I saw a computer I thought, "Nah, I can't do that," you know? 'Cause, you know, "Computers are magic, right?" They're not meant for me. They're meant for, like, geniuses, right? You know, "Black kids can't do math." You know, "Black kids can't do this kind of stuff," and I bought into a lot of that. I bought into a lot of that kind of stuff. But I had a two-year-old child, so I had to do something, you know? 'Cause I wasn't making enough money, and I wanted him to have a better lifestyle than I did growing up. So I took him up on it, and, you know, I shot across the bridge over into Bellevue from Seattle, and then--I don't know if you know Seattle, but in Seattle you have east side and west side, and when you go across that bridge, man, it's completely different. Extremely affluent. Very, very white. You know, as a brother back in the, you know, '90s, you couldn't be on that side if you weren't an athlete, right, or somebody else, you know, that they recognized, because if you were a black person that they didn't recognize, the cops would give you a hard time. Like, literally. They would follow you around and stuff, right? But I went over there and I interviewed, and I interviewed with, like, nine blonde-haired, blue-eyed women, man, sitting around the table. I was like, "Man, I don't know if I want to do this," and they offered me the job, you know? And I was like, "Whoa, what do I do now?" And at that same time I was actually interviewing with the fire department, and walking out of that office--I drove, like, this beat up 1984 Volvo, you know? And when I say it was beat up, I mean it was *beat up*. There was 100 and something thousand miles on it. The paint was peeling, you know? That kind of stuff, you know? I put on the best clothes that I had at that time.Zach: That was a bucket.Lionel: It was a bucket. Man, it was a buck-et. And I'm walking out, and every car in the parking lot was like Mercedes, Audis, BMWs, you know, that kind of stuff, and I was like, "I don't know, maybe I can do this." And so I accepted and started there, and struggled, man--I struggled a lot. I mean, I struggled so bad the first three months. There's a very large organization. It's called EDP Contract Services. Now I think they're called TAC Worldwide, and it's one of the largest recruiting organizations in the world. At that time, I forget exactly how many people they had, but I know that at one time I was ranked, like, something like 2000th or something out of the company of recruiters, and by the time--I had to make a decision at one point because--you know, because I was basically told that I could be pretty successful in this if I got the street out of my voice, right? So I started [?]--you know, I went home and was, like, frustrated over it, you know? And my girl at that time, she was pretty hood too, so she was like, "[BLEEP] them. You know, we can sue them. Blah, blah, blah, blah," you know? But I went to bed with my two-year-old son, you know, and I was like, "Man, I've got to do something." So I made up my mind. You know, I made up my mind that okay, well, this is what I'm gonna do, and I walked into the office the next day--I got there at 6:00 in the morning. Nobody was there. And I didn't leave until, like, 8:00 at night, and then I did that for, like, a whole year, and I became #2 in the company, and my income went up something like 300% in a year. Zach: Goodness gracious.Lionel: Mm-hmm. And so I figured out that yeah, I can do this. And then I went to--excuse me, sorry. I went to San Francisco right after that. I got recruited by a staffing firm there. I didn't like them too much, so I started my own staffing firm. We did $2.5 million in our second year of business, and that was just, like, you know, three of us, right? And then we added some people on and that kind of stuff. Then I came back to Seattle and, again, you know, got recruited by another company and became the manager for recruiting for a startup during the dot-com era. I was killing it there, then the dot-com bubble burst, and then I went to Washington Mutual as their diverse executive recruiter, and that was probably one of the worst work experiences I've ever had, 'cause what happened--what happened was they wanted this person, but one of the head people in this department didn't want this person. They didn't feel the need for a diversity executive recruiter. So they waited for her to go on maternity leave and then, behind her back, hired me, right? So my first day of work I'm walking down the hall and this woman walks up to me and she goes, "Who are you?" And I said, "Oh, I'm Lionel Lee." And she goes, "Well, what do you do?" And I said, "Well, you know, I run diversity executive recruitment here," and she just looked at me, and I got this, like--it was chilling. Like, this look was crazy, and then the next thing I know, man, like, seven months later or eight months later, you know, maybe close to a year later, you know, the whole group was disbanded and we all had to leave and, you know, go do our own thing. And it was kind of crazy too. The way that they told you was, you know, they asked you to come in for an early morning meeting. I went in for an early morning meeting and they had HR there, and they said it's disbanded.Zach: So where does Zillow come into play?Lionel: 2007 hit, man. 2007, 2008, 2009, you know, and I went through all of my money, and I had to get back to work, you know? So I joined a really small recruiting firm that was, you know, bullshit. They didn't know what they were doing. [both laugh] But then there was this other recruiting firm that I really wanted and I went and joined them, and they were amazing, and--that's one of the crazy things too, the dude that hired me--he's, like, this really young--comparatively. I think he's, like, you know, close to 40 now--Republican white dude, right? And he hired me on to the company, and I go in there and I'm on the phone the first day, and he said "Hey, Lionel, can I [?] you for a second?" And I was like, "Yeah, what's up?" And he goes, "Man, who the hell is that on the phone?" And I was like, "What are you talking about?" He goes, "Do you know you sound white?" And I was like, "What?" He goes, "Yeah. When you talk to me normally, you know, we're fine, but whenever you get on the phone you sound white," and it's because of what I learned in the earlier part of my career.Zach: Code switching, man. Yeah.Lionel: I was code switching. And I told him, "Well, you know, that's how--" And he goes, "Nah, man. I don't think that's why you're successful. I would really love to see you be you. I got enough white dudes in my office. That's why I hired you." [Zach laughs] And I was like, "Oh, okay," and then I started really, like, trying to understand what just happened, and the reason I ended up here at Zillow Group--I stayed there for, like, five years, six years, right? And I ended up killing it there. I was always either #1 or #2. And the reason I ended up here is that the person who had hired me on at Washington Mutual, she became the vice president of talent acquisition here at Zillow, and she--I started my own company after a while, again, right, and she was one of my clients, and she asked me to come in, and she said, "Lionel," you know--this was, like, 2016. "Lionel, we're really trying to do this diversity thing, man, but we don't know what we're doing." You know, "Would you want to help us?" And I said, "Well, I can put something together." You know, I talked about it with them a little bit. They wanted me to do it. I couldn't dedicate time to it 'cause I had my own staffing firm at that time and my staffing firm was doing extremely well, but what happened was that it kind of grabbed a part of me that I didn't know really existed. My experience in tech as a black man was horrible. I mean, it was horrible, so I decided that, you know, by doing this I would be given an opportunity to better the experiences of other people that are underrepresented in the tech space, right? 'Cause when I was starting out, you know, there was no other. You know, there was me. There was me, and I was probably the only one that I knew with the exception of, like, one or two that worked in other agencies. But it was me, right? And it was horrible. I hated it. I mean, I couldn't--there was no way that I could tell somebody that "Yeah, this is a good day." I woke up every single day begrudging going to work, and eventually I was able to push down to the point where I didn't realize that, you know, there was a part of me that was always anxious, right? And that's when I got a chance to change, you know, within this organization, and then what I'm hoping for is that this organization will be--you know, will be, like, a beacon for others to take a look at, right? Like, "What did they do to make a difference?" Right? 'Cause we did. We changed how we are as a company. We've changed the way that we're perceived. You know, people want to come to work here, you know? That kind of thing, and, you know, the brown and black folks here are much happier now than they were. We know that because I'm very data-driven, and we took some surveys and things like that that let us know that the things we're doing are working. But that's how I ended up in this position. And I was a consultant at first, and they--you know, we talked about 20 hours a week. 20 became 40. It became 60. It became an obsession, you know? Because I--you know, I was like, "Ooh, I get a chance to--"Zach: Really move the needle in some way, yeah.Lionel: Yeah. Not just move the needle, but, you know, just--you know, we talk a lot in those kind of terms, right? Like, "move the needle," you know, that kind of stuff, and the way that I looked at it was never really like that, you know? The way that I was looking at it was, you know, "Improve the day-to-day experience of the underrepresented worker going into the tech space." That was my--that's my driver, right? The way that I describe what I do is that my job is to make sure that everybody that comes to work is happy and feels like they belong. That's my job. That is my job, and I--I don't like to say I love my job, because I don't think in that way, but I'm extremely proud of what we've done here at Zillow Group. I'm extremely proud, and I'm hoping to continue on this path and, you know, continue to make us an employer of choice.Zach: [applause sfx] I mean, what can I say? I mean, I hear you. This is incredible. Look, I have another question, but I want to get into this really quick though. You talked about some of the things that y'all are doing here and, like, they've been serving well. What are some of those things that you've been able to do at Zillow that you believe have helped to improve the sense of belonging and inclusiveness for black and brown folks? Lionel: Well, that was the thing, right? 'Cause one of the things that they had asked me to do was go out and find best practices, and the crazy thing is that there were no best practices 'cause nobody was really killing it. Nobody's numbers said that they were killing it, right? So I had to come up with my own stuff, but what that gave me was green fields. So I could do a couple things. So one of the first things that I did is I was walking through the office one day--and we had this wall of speakers, right? And the speakers--I looked at that wall, and it's a pretty big wall of all of these, you know, headshots of all of these speakers that we've had come into the office, and I was like, "Damn, every single person on there is white." Like, literally. Like, every single person on there is white except for one brother that we had, and of course he was a football player, right?Zach: Of course. Of course.Lionel: Right? And I was like, "Come on, man." You know? So I changed that immediately. That was one of my goals, to change that, and I did that. You know, we brought in people like Van Jones. We brought in people that were from the Islamic community. We brought in people from the Latinx community. Totally changed that whole landscape, right? And then we started talking about, like, just simple things like events, you know? Because that's one of the things that tech companies are known for, right? We have these crazy-ass parties where everybody has a good time, but not everybody gets down like that, you know what I mean? Like, I didn't grow up that way, you know? I don't go out and--you know, I'm not one of those people that like to [imbibe?] in that way and that's how I party. That's not how I do. I like the music. I like to dance. I like that kind of stuff, you know? And I'm not saying that we're all the same, but there are certain foundational pieces that make us a little bit the same. [?], right? And so we started throwing, like, parties, but I would tell the dudes that came in--I started going out and creating relationships with external organizations that were representative of underrepresented groups within our company. So we had professional organizations that I went and made agreements with, and then they would come in and they would throw the parties. And they asked me, they said, "Well, how black do you want this to be?" [both laugh] And I was like, "I want it to be as black as you want to make it."Zach: Right. It needs to be black black, with a Q.Lionel: It needs to be, 'cause you have people here from, you know, predominantly black areas, right? You've got a kid that grew up in a predominantly black area. He goes to an HBCU, you know, does really well there, and then all of a sudden he's thrown into this, right, where he's one of--I think we're at, like, 9% or something like that, right? We're still improving in that area, right? And then he's just got to, like, hang out and do what these guys do? You know, why don't we give him some of what he had back home? You know, why don't we create a sense of community for him, you know what I mean? And we did that, and then we started taking a look at some of the things--and it's all from my own experience, right? One of the things that really bothered me is, like, when all of the brothers was getting shot, you know, I felt completely alone in the office, and I had nobody to talk to about it, right? And what we did is we started--we created a forum here where people can--when things like that happen, for example when the El Paso shooting happened recently, you know, we had a forum here inside the office where people from the Latinx community could get together, along with people that were not from that community but allies that were in positions of power and strength here at the company, we all got together and we had a conversation, and we, you know, basically video-taped everybody in from all the other offices, and we had this, you know, straight up conversation about what this feels like, and that made a difference in people's experience, right? And then we talked about "How do we do our recruiting?" We started taking a look at--I started taking a look at how we do the recruiting in the first place, right? Many of our people that come on board come on from internships, so how do we effect that? Well, we start creating more relationships with organizations that are representative of us. So we started a relationship with NSBE, the National Society of Black Engineers. We started a relationship with SHPE, Society of Hispanic Professional Engineers, right? And then we put into practice talking to the CTO, the chief technology officer, who is just--you know, he's cool, he's just really cool, and I gave him an a-ha moment when I took him to AfroTech, like, two years ago.Zach: Oh, yeah. Shout-out AfroTech. Shout-out Blavity. Yeah, yeah, yeah.Lionel: Yeah, by Blavity, right? And I took him--he was one of the only white dudes there, and I was like, "Look, you know, I'm gonna introduce you to some people. You're gonna have some good conversations, and then we're gonna talk about it afterwards," and he was like, "Cool," but he walks in and there's THOUSANDS of black people, man. Where people were telling him, "Oh," we can't be found, which is bullshit. Zach: It is, man. No, it is. It is so annoying, Lionel. Well, it's annoying and it's insulting and it's racist, right? So you said, "Well, we can't find this talent"--like, we're all over, and, like, look, AfroTech is an obvious one, but man, there are also, like, a lot of, like, local, like, groups, right? Like, there's all--if you go to any major city, there's some grassroots coding group that is black and brown, right? And honestly, even if you just take the time and look in the PWIs that you're recruiting, if you just look one more time, they're there too. Like, we're here. Lionel: Right, right. So what we did--he saw that, and we came back and he was like, "What do we do?" And I said, "Well, let's figure out some strategies," and what we started doing is we started making--'cause Boeing has doing been this forever, but Boeing's been going to NSBE and making offers on the spot, right? And so it was like, "Okay, well, let's do that," and we started doing that, and we started increasing our numbers because of that, right? And then those kids that were coming in as interns, we started converting them to full-time, and then on top of it their experience as workers here is real cool because, like, I'll walk by, you know, and I'll talk to 'em and be like, "Hey, what's happening, brother?" You know? "How you doing?" And they'll look at me like--Zach: Even that alone, which is small, right? It's huge to them.Lionel: It's small. It's really, really small, but it's so important, right? People gotta feel like they feel belong. People gotta feel like they're appreciated, right? That's what has to happen, and that's what we started doing. That's one of the things. I could go on and on, man. We've done--when I say I'm proud of the work that we've done here, I'm extremely proud of the work that we've done here.Zach: Rightfully so.Lionel: Yeah. The executives have been fully on board. You know, we also do this other thing where we understand the C-level, the C-Suite, has to be on board. So we do a thing called the MB Learning Series, which is twice a month. You know, we get together, myself, the senior VP of community and culture, and some other key individuals that are well-versed in this space. We'll get together with a bunch of people from the C-Suite, and we'll sit down and we'll talk for about an hour, an hour and a half, about whatever it is, right? It could be a current event that has impacted an underrepresented group, or it could be about something that they've encountered themselves, right, that they want to know more about, right? So we work with them, and they get to learn, they get to learn what's happening, and it changes their perspective and it changes the way that they go out and approach things and make decisions, right? We have our CEO--our CEO is, like, one of the only CEOs where, you know, in his signature file, you know, he has his pronouns, right? Because that's important, you know, to understand that not everybody identifies in that way. Understanding that people identify differently is extremely important, 'cause it puts you in a different place in your learning, in your journey, and that's how we got here. I mean, there's--you know, I could go on and on, but that would take up your whole segment.Zach: No, no, no. This is great, and look, Lionel, we'll just have you back. It's not a problem, man. We'll just have you--[both laugh] You'll just come on back. But it's interesting, really quickly, about the pronoun point, right? So, you know, some research that Living Corporate has been doing, you know what I'm saying, on our whitepaper--if you check us out on the website, you know, you'll see us on there, and we talk about the fact that, you know, 14% of millennials identify as trans or non-binary, right? So it's a real statistic.Lionel: Oh, it's a real statistic. It's real. And, you know, there's so many different groups of other people that do not feel like they belong. You know, they just--you know, especially with the current climate in our country today. That kind of stuff, the divisiveness of our country today, and, you know, we just--we want to make sure, in our company--and we've been voted, like, one of the best places to work forever, right? ["ow" sfx] Forever. But what was not being considered was that not everybody felt that way. It was not the best place to work for everyone. We found that out through our data, you know? We pulled some data that showed us that. So our goal is to make this the best place to work for everyone, and we don't--I mean, we look at everyone and make sure that they're taken care of. And we started our ERGs here two years ago. We dedicated a lot of resources to it. It has its own program manager that manages everything. That's his full-time gig. That's what he does to make sure that, you know, they're good. You know, we have all of the infrastructure in place for that. They're fully capitalized. Yeah. We do--you know, we do a lot of stuff here that a lot of companies don't do, and I think a lot of it just has to do with the fact that we've been following best practices. 'Cause, like I said, we didn't find any, so we had to create our own.Zach: No, that's incredible, and you're absolutely--this is the thing. It's so interesting because as commercialized and, I'm gonna say it, colonized as diversity and inclusion has become, right, like, as a space, when it comes to actually delivering and doing the work, we're still very much so in our infancy, right? Like, there's not a blueprint for anything.Lionel: No. No, there isn't, and that's--yeah, I would agree with you that there is a lot of stuff in our space that, you know, I kind of, like, look at three or four times too, you know? Like, "Really? That's what we're gonna do now?" [Zach laughs] But that's the thing, you know? Let's be creative, you know? Let's figure it out, and for me it was very personal, you know? That's why, you know, a lot of the stuff that we did here was me imagining me, you know, sitting there at work. You know, what would I want? You know, when I first started in this stuff, what would I want? I'd want to be able to come into work and feel like I can be the best me possible, right? But I don't have to, like, play by nobody else's rules about how I talk, how I walk, and all of those kinds of things. I don't believe that people should or can bring their whole selves to work. I don't believe in that. I think that, you know, there's some shit you need to leave at home, right? [both laugh] I don't believe--you know, like, my grandmother used to tell me, you know, "Tell some. Keep a lot." You know what I mean? You don't need people knowing everything, right?Zach: Yeah, keep going.Lionel: You should be able to be comfortable when you go to work. You shouldn't have to code switch as much. You shouldn't, you know, have to wonder about your place there as much, you know what I mean?Zach: I do. You're 100% right, yeah. Lionel: Yeah, that's what we did. Zach: You said, "Share a little bit. Keep a lot." But you're right though, and some of that, Lionel, is cultural, right? So, like, I would say black and brown folks--and I'll just speak for my experience. Like, I was raised, you know, you keep your business to yourself, right? Like, there's certain things, where as then, you know, there's stereotypes that white folks love to just tell everything they got going on. They'll talk about the medication they're taking, if they're depressed, you know? They'll share everything. But you're right, like, I'm not tripping on--I don't necessarily--my quote-unquote "whole self," like, I don't have to do that, but I should feel comfortable--right, I should not feel uncomfortable and dread going to work or feel like, man, just so otherized to the point where I can't even function.Lionel: Exactly, and being othered is real, and it's difficult for people to see that, you know? Like, "Oh, we're paying you," you know? "I don't know why you don't feel appreciated," you know? It's that kind of stuff, and it's like, "Man." You know, if I'm coming into work and I can't wait to get home--not because, you know, I just don't want to be at work for whatever reason, but just because I don't feel comfortable and when I get home is when I feel comfortable? Or I'm dreading going to a company event because I don't feel comfortable? You know, that's a problem. That's a problem. That's why there's more brothers and sisters that are consultants than full-time employees in the tech space.Zach: Man... listen. Oh, my goodness. So look, Lionel, you gonna have to come back, because I've got, like, four more topics we can talk about, [laughs] but you're 100% right, right? Like, you think about, like, it's these temporary, transient roles, right, that give you space, but then also, like--they give you space to kind of move around and not get too uncomfortable in these environments. Man, not to mention the pattern where I'm seeing a lot of black and brown folks are in these, like, non-client-facing positions. Like, they'll typically in, like, the security tech roles, but let me not even--let me not step on too many toes today. Let's keep going though. I want to respect your time. Let's get into how you and I connected. So of course, you know, I'm on LinkedIn. I'm active active on there, but I seen you on there, and you sent me a link about a project you're working on, which really got my attention, and I'd love to--I'd love for you to talk a little bit about that as well as--and just kind of your passion and interest as to why you're doing the work that you're doing on it.Lionel: Yeah. I think you're referring to the microaggressions survey that we sent out.Zach: That's right. Lionel: So Rebekah Bastian is the VP of Community and Culture here. She's my boss, right? I have a direct line to her and then a [?] line to the chief people officer. She and I sit right next to each other. It's an open kind of space. And she's a contributing writer for Forbes. So she was writing this thing on microaggressions, and I was like, "Let me read that," and I read it, and it talked about microaggressions towards women, right, and more microaggressions towards women, and I was like, "Man, that's crazy," you know? Because we suffer from microaggressions. And she was like, "You do, I know that." And I was like, "Yeah, I know you know that, but, you know, there's no data around it. Why don't we do our own survey?" You know, 'cause we couldn't find no data, right? We did the research and whatever, and she was like, "Yeah, I would love to write something on that, but, you know, I can't find any data," and I said, "Well, let's create our own data, you know?" So she put a survey together, and I sent it out to my network, which is pretty broad, and then many of my--that's one thing I want to thank everybody for, including yourself, you know? Many of them sent them out to their networks too. Like, "Hey, you know, this is happening. Let's talk about this." Right? And yeah, I came back and--I think we're gonna try and do this, like, yearly, and try to go even deeper, 'cause I think that it was a great introduction, but I think that we could have covered a couple areas that, you know, people really don't want to cover. But it's important, right? 'Cause I know that I suffer for them still today on a daily basis. I have to check somebody in a meeting or, you know, I also have to be mindful about certain things, right, you know, that they don't have to, you know? When I say them, I mean, like, white folks that are in my same position or at the same level that I'm at, right? And yeah, we still go through it, and it's difficult. You know, it's difficult, and we had to put that information together ourselves 'cause we couldn't find any.Zach: Well, to that point though, why do you think that I&D programs--so I have a bevy of my own theories, right, but why do you think, when we talk about diversity, equity, and inclusion, we don't zoom in on black male or brown male experiences specifically?Lionel: I don't think people really want that wake-up call yet, you know what I mean? I think that people want to imagine that "Hey," you know, they got to this particular spot in their career, you know, they're making this particular amount of money, you know, they should be happy, right? But they don't know that for a lot of us--I mean a lot of us, man, a lot of us--you know, we have to deal with [BLEEP] on a daily basis that they never have to deal with, they never have to deal with. But nobody really wants to put light on that, you know? 'Cause then that would mean that we have to do some more work, and I think people don't want to do that, you know? I think that, you know, people try and find the easiest and fastest way to get to a certain point, right? But when we're talking about something that's this complicated and this nuanced, it's gonna take some work. It's gonna take some serious work, and--what is it--the implicit bias trainings and all of those kinds of things, you know, that's, like, the tip of the iceberg. Nobody wants to.Zach: No, they don't. And it's aggravating too, because even--so I've talked to--so in my current job, and then at previous jobs too, but, like, I have mentors here, and I've [?]--you know, what I find frustrating about us always running into implicit bias is that it makes the presumption that all bias is accidental or unconscious, right? And it's like, "No." Some of y'all actively don't want black and brown people here. Like, come on. It is 20--it is the age of our Beyonce, 2019. We know the deal. [both laugh] We know where people align politically. Like, more than ever we have direct insight into political idealogies, beliefs, and points of view on race, gender, sex, religion, sexuality. Like, we know all these things, so, like, let's not act like everything is "Oh, I stumbled across this racist thing." Like, come on. That's not the reality. So let me ask you this as we kind of wrap up. What are some of the challenges that you've come across as a black executive leader within an I&D space? 'Cause you're the second person. You're only the second person in one of these positions that I've met that is a black man. So you're in this position, right? Typically I see folks in this position are white women and maybe even white women who identiy as LGBTQ, right? As a black man, what does influence and coalition-building look like in your position?Lionel: Influence and coalition-building in my position? Well, one is--you know, one, you've got to have allies. I don't believe that we're in a position right now, that we have the power right now, to be able to make the change that we need to make without powerful allies, right? But at the same time, those powerful allies are working with biases themselves, so you need to make sure that you're training them up, mentoring up with them, to make sure that when they are supporting you that they're supporting you effectively and they know where it's coming from. I agree with you in many ways that, yeah, I don't necessarily think--well, let me change that. I don't believe that bias is a strong enough word for one thing. Two, I don't believe that it is all implicit. I do think that some people are just that way, and they just believe, you know, all of the propaganda and rhetoric that has been going on in the United States forever about us, right? And coalition-building really means getting rid of some of that, you know? Doing the, you know, behavioral change and thought change is important, you know? That kind of thing has to happen before people can really try to support you, because they have to understand that they are being affected, and their actions are being affected, by things that they've been taught for most of their lives in the United States, you know? The United States, man, we're--this is a country built on racism. This is a country that's, you know, built on the backs of us, you know? Whether you're Asian, Latino, Native-American, you know, that's what this country is built on. [to this day sfx]Zach: Straight up.Lionel: To this day.Zach: To this day!Lionel: To this day, right? To this day, and we have to get to a place where we recognize that. We have to get to a place where we're not okay with it. It is something that we're ashamed of, but it's something that we're gonna admit, right? That this is what's going on with us, and we need to move forward from here. That's coalition-building, you know? Getting people to really understand the mistakes that were made. Fess up to them. Own up to them. Make some changes, right? [?]Zach: [Flex bomb sfx] Man, I love it. And, you know, this is the thing--you're the first person who I've had a conversation with who talks about the fact that coalition-building is not only bringing things in but also pushing things away, right? It's both. I love that. I love that. Well, look, let's do this. If you had three points of advice for any leader seeking to specifically recruit and engage black men, what would they be?Lionel: Make sure that what you want to invite them to is welcoming of black men. Do that, right? I mean, don't ask me to come to your house if your house is falling apart. Don't do that. Like, make sure your outline's right first, right? Make sure that you work with recruiting to help them to understand that, yes, they are out there, you're just gonna have to work a little bit harder. Make sure that you work with your executive staff to make sure that they're on board with whatever programs that you put in place so that you can make sure that you keep people once they get there. Zach: I love it. Just like that. And listen, y'all, you heard Lionel's advice, so we looking at you now. So you're gonna come around trying to invite black and brown men to your organizations, and we're looking back at you like [haha sfx]. Look, don't play yourself. Pay attention. This has been great, Lionel. Before we get out of here, any parting words or shout-outs?Lionel: No, man. Thank you for having me. You know, we've got a lot of work to do. You know, we're nowhere near where we could be, and a lot of this is about the economic divide, the wealth gap, and it's just gonna get wider and wider and wider. We've got to get on, you know, our bikes, man. We've got to get to work, you know, 'cause--we've got to get to work. We've got to get to work.Zach: Well, they're projecting that the median wealth of black families from a household perspective will be zero dollars, like, by 2050 or so, so you're absolutely right. We gotta--man, Lionel, this has been--like, no shade to everybody else, y'all, this has been top two dopest conversations we've had on Living Corporate. Thank you so much for being a guest. We very much so want to have you back. We'll talk about that offline. Until next time, y'all, this has been Zach. You've been listening to Lionel Lee at the Zillow Group. Make sure you check out all of his information. Links in the show notes. Catch y'all next time. Peace.

Zach speaks with Kori Hale, CEO of CultureBanx, about CultureBanx itself and her personal career journey. They also discuss the concept of producing content, particularly while other, and Kori offers some great advice for professionals who are afraid to make a jump or do something new in their career.Connect with CultureBanx through their website, Instagram, and Twitter - and check out their content on Spotify!Connect with Kori on LinkedIn, Instagram, and Twitter!TRANSCRIPTZach: What's up, y'all? It's Zach with Living Corporate, and we are here again. More fire for your head top, more content, more real discussions with black and brown people or people that affirm the identities and experiences of black and brown people to center--that's right--black and brown people. And today is no different, 'cause, you know, we're coming to y'all with really good conversations, often times with a special guest, and we have such a guest today - Kori Hale. Kori, welcome to the show. How are you doing?Kori: Hi, Zach. I'm great. How are you?Zach: I'm doing really, really well. I appreciate the fact that you were able to take the time to be on the show. For those of us who don't know you, could you talk a little bit about yourself?Kori: Yes, I can, but before I do, I noticed in the opening you said this show is also for people who affirm the identities of black and brown people, and I was wondering if that included Rachel Dolezal. [laughs]Zach: Oh, goodness. You know what? If Rachel wants to--here's the thing about Rachel. I--it's so confusing, 'cause she could have done so much more as an actual white woman and, you know, given and used her privilege as--you know, and given it away. Instead she chose to, I don't know, handicap herself, but then also take a bunch of, like, praise? I don't know. Maybe. I don't know. What do you think? You tell me.Kori: Yeah, I don't know. It is a tough one. However, homegirl can definitely braid some hair based on that Netflix documentary that I saw, 'cause I'm like, "Yo." I mean, normally white people just have less-textured hair, so it's much harder to actually, you know, braid in extensions, and I ain't ever even seen anyone iron some hair like that before. [both laugh] She was teaching me some stuff! So I was like, "Oh, girl, I didn't even know you could do all that."Zach: That's so funny. But you know what? I think this is a really good segue into what you do and your platform, but I'd love to hear more about your journey and kind of--so let's just get it out there. You're the CEO and founder of CultureBanx, which is a media platform for black folks, for black and brown--I'm gonna say black folks, and I'll let you kind of get into it, but let's talk a little bit about your journey and kind of how you got there and then really more about what CultureBanx is.Kori: Yes. So my journey is--well, as I like to say, the path that we're all on in life is not easy, nor is it paved in gold, and that's a lot like my story. I started out as an investment banker, first internationally at a Swiss bank in London, and then I moved back to the States and I was with Goldman Sachs for several years and just really realized, right, that there wasn't anyone that looked like me delivering high-level business financial news in a way that really would resonate with my community, with my core values, and so I was like, you know, "If I can't figure this out, let me maybe try and go work at some of the big networks," specifically business news networks, right, and figure out how can I maybe inject some diversity, because I think that a lot of us, when you work in corporate America, the main thing that you want to do is feel like--and I really actually hate when people use the word "safe places" or "safe space." Like, there's no safe space when you get up and you go to work for somebody else every day, right? Because it's their company. So, like, that doesn't exist, even if they want to create some employee resource group or whatever. Like, the head of the employee resource group still reports to somebody that doesn't look like them, [?] like, up to the CEO of the company. And so I thought I was gonna be able to inject diversity at networks like Bloomberg and CNBC, and even when I was a news anchor down on the floor of the Stock Exchange and actually didn't even know until I was down there that I was the first African-American woman to ever anchor a daily news show from the floor of the New York Stock Exchange in its 200+-year history, and I thought, "Well, that's odd." Like, "What's going on here? Why has that never been a thing until I worked at this media startup?" But through that transition of investment banking to then getting into media, what I really realized was that there was no outlet, broadcast, print, or digital, that was gonna deliver the type of content that I was looking for. So if a former investment banker journalist can't create this sort of company for communities that need it the most, then no one else is gonna go out there and do it, and that really brings us more to the present day and CultureBanx, the media company, and what we do is create business news for hip hop culture, and essentially all of our articles have music attached to it that then spins out into different curated Spotify playlists. So it's pretty dope if I do say so myself, because I--Zach: Aye. [laughs]Kori: I mean, it is. I look at music as that sort of underlying theme throughout all communities. It's an easy way to engage, an easy way to see a reflection of yourself, and what if we took that same approach to information and content and not keep pushing just entertainment and sports and celebrity and that sort of stuff to minority communities? Because we think--and by we, the people that are actually even pushing the content towards these communities aren't even from those communities, but they're trying to say, "Oh, this is what they want. This is the only thing they care about," but that's not true. It's just that you're putting it in a, as I like to say, razzle-dazzle sort of way. If you did the same thing but you talked about stocks and mergers and acquisitions, what a difference you might see in those communities.Zach: No, you're absolutely. And I mean, I think the other piece is, like, also acknowledging the work that those communities are already doing, right? So there's more and more black tech spaces that are coming up organically, right? Like, you think about--there's multiple of these types of pods, like, within the coastal cities, the DMV, LA, Oakland, Houston, the Midwest and Chicago. Like, there's all types of just organic things happening. Healthy living co-ops. There's all types of activities that are happening in these--again, like, in these black and brown communities, but there are larger, I think, like--I don't know, just larger narratives and systems in place that minimize those stories. And also there's a lack of funding, right, and marketing awareness for those organizations that are already in place. What I think I hear you talking about is really exciting because you're pushing more content, and then I also believe CultureBanx provides opportunities, or at least opens up a lens to what is actually happening today in those spaces, right?Kori: Yes. We definitely provide people with what we call the culturally-attuned perspective in those spaces. I mean, it's easy to see a headline--to your point--about minority maybe co-working spaces or different companies or organizations, institutions, that are focusing in the STEM fields as it relates to minorities. What we really try to push over at CultureBanx are the everyday stories though. So not just [whatever?] falls in the minority bucket 'cause it mentioned something about the Latinx or Asian or black community, but this story is the headline on all of these platforms, and this is information you need to know, but they're not gonna tell you exactly why it's relevant to your community, why you should personally care about something like that. And Zach, can I go ahead and give your listeners a quick example here?Zach: Come on.Kori: So last year, Michael Kors--the company, the retail brand--bought Versace, a very famous Italian luxury retail brand, for $3 billion. You would think on the surface, "Okay, well, that's interesting I guess, if you're into fashion," or even if you're not into fashion, but no one is telling you why that deal is really a play on urban culture. And the reason that Michael Kors really wants a bigger stake in Versace is because of Versace's long-standing love affair with hip-hop, hip-hop and the community, and hip-hop of course being the #1 genre of music for the past decade.Zach: In the world.Kori: Right. Hip-hop leads these trends, and the majority of hip-hop artists are African-American. We've seen a huge rise, right, with Latinx performers in the hip-hop community as well, but still all in that, you know, minority category, and just that spending power alone of African-Americans is currently at $1.3 trillion, making the spending power of this community larger than the economy of Mexico.Zach: Come on, now. [Flex bomb sfx]Kori: Y'all gotta feel me when I say we have more spending power than the entire country of Mexico just as an African-American community, a subset of the bigger U.S. population, but it's more powerful than entire countries. And so to get in front of that audience, right, is something that most brands want, and no one is gonna talk about that the way we're gonna tell you "This is why this is important," right? This market move by Michael Kors to acquire Versace is much bigger than them trying to perhaps get into more of the luxury business and much bigger than Versace trying to figure out how it can get into more stores. It's like, "Hey, we know their main audience, the people that are spending money." I mean, think of all of the free advertisement that Versace gets in hip hop songs?Zach: Oh, no, 100%. 'Cause part of me--I was talking to my wife about this. I was like, "Dang, I wonder if any of these rappers--like, do they have deals that they don't talk about?" Right? Like, when Migos made that song "Versace," right, like, did they have some secret deal, like, a marketing agreement, and, like, did Drake get a piece of that? 'Cause, like, it's just wild that--like, we do that though. Like, we'll talk about Polo, Versace, Gucci. Like, we love high-end brands. We talk about Pateks. Like, we talk about--anything that's, like, European and very expensive, like, they end up in rap songs, and I just ask myself--and maybe I'm a little bit more conspiratorial than I should be. I'm always thinking about, like, there's just some grander scheme here--like, I just wonder, like, is there some, like, larger agreement that maybe even some of these record labels have with these European brands to then create this content? 'Cause you're absolutely right. Like, we promote it at crazy levels. Like, I wouldn't have wore Polos when I was in middle school like I did if it wasn't for Kanye, and I wouldn't have wore--like, there's just a bunch of clothes that I just wouldn't have purchased without--like, without rap influence, you know what I mean?Kori: No, I completely understand what you're saying. I think that that's what makes this so fascinating and so interesting, that other businesses, industries, sectors, they really value, right, the trendsetting and the taste-makers that come from minority communities moreso than we will value our own, you know, power, and that's the problem, because sometimes I don't think that we really immensely understand the power that we have. So when things are not going right, let's say on the negative side--racism, sexism, those sort of things--like, how valuable withholding your dollars from certain brands can be to move the needle.Zach: Yes, you're absolutely right. And, you know, it's interesting because, you know, these insights that you're having around media production--like, the business insights that you're having and that you're bringing to this space, I mean, I think it comes from your business journey, right? Like, you've had a few different jobs, and you don't really give the impression of someone who's afraid to change. So, like, can we talk a little bit about where you started, and then, you know, what advice you would give to professionals who are wherever they are for whatever reason and they're afraid to make a jump and to do something new? Kori: Yes. I actually really love kind of telling this particular part of my journey, but I'ma take it back a little bit before I actually started working and shout-out my undergrad university, Hampton University, out there in the Hampton Roads area right outside of Virginia Beach. And going to an HBCU is a very great experience, but for me personally, growing up in Houston, Texas, I grew up knowing and being around affluent African-Americans, so that wasn't, like, a stretch for me, to see black people that had real money, not the--you know, the kind of clout money as they say. That wasn't really a stretch for me, but going to Hampton University and really getting a full scope and breadth of black people from across the country, like, that was very eye-opening for me, and what it instilled was really the value of appreciating what we can do as a community and, you know, us being a part of that talented [?] and what that would mean for the future of our community. And after Hampton, when I moved to London and started investment banking at the Swiss bank UBS, I was like, "Huh. Well, this is also odd, because now I'm back in this super minority--" I call it a double-minority status, because I'm not just, like, a black person living abroad--I'm a black person and I'm also an American, so it was just a lot of things to have to work through. But coming back to the States from London and working at Goldman, I kind of got a better sense of the way that corporate America worked, and I wanted--at the time I thought the ultimate goal was to become a partner, right? That's what you kind of train for, that's what you kind of work up--"what you should be," as the company will tell you, should be aspiring towards. [cha-ching sfx] And I'm like, "Okay, so let me sort out this path." And I figured out what that path was about two years after I started at Goldman. I stayed another couple of years, but after those first two years when I figured it out, I also got into the mindset of "Okay, I pretty much know what it's gonna take and how long it's gonna take me to get there." Like, "That can't be the mountaintop," so to speak, because there's got to be more to life than this. And I really just took those next two years where I was at the firm to kind of navigate what I wanted to do. Like, if you would have told me at the time that I started at Goldman that I would one day be running my own media company, like, I would have laughed at you, because I had no aspirations to be in media. I didn't know anything about journalism. Matter of fact, the day I left Goldman Sachs, I did not know one person that worked in media. I'm talking about not even an assistant, even a doorman at a building, security officer at a news room, nothing. Like, I literally knew no one that actually worked in any news corporation, but I felt like God spoke to me when I was at Goldman and said that this is what I should be doing. I just kind of decided to stick with it, and some of the partners that were mentors and sponsors for me, I ran this idea by them, that I, you know, was gonna leave Goldman and go to journalism school and try and become a business news journalist--they were very supportive, and they told me basically, like, you're young--I was around 26 at the time--and if it doesn't work out, you can always come back here. Like, "You can always come back to GS if it doesn't work out," but a lot of them were basically like, "Don't be like us." Like, "Don't buy into," essentially drinking the company corporate Kool-Aid, so to speak, and stay here because you've figured out the path and it seems safe and secure, because you'll always look back and say, "But if I would have given this other thing a shot, even if I failed, at least I would have known I tried." And going back to a respectable organization like GS isn't a terrible fallback plan for anyone. Luckily I haven't had to tap into that fallback plan, but you never know what the future holds. [laughs] So we can always see, but that's kind of how that transition happened.Zach: You know, it's just incredible because--I'll speak for myself, right? Like, you know, I didn't think that I would get here, where I am, in my job, you know? I didn't think that I would be--I didn't think I'd be working here. Like, I remember when I was in high school I said, "I think I want to be a consultant one day," and my high school counselor said, "You're not gonna be a consultant," right? You know? And then after that, before I became a consultant I was trying to pursue a career in HR. I had folks who look like me saying, "You're not gonna be an HR manager," right? So, you know, for me, because of that and not having a lot of people that look like me in these spaces, getting to one of these jobs seemed to be the mountaintop, right? But the reality is that there's more to life than just working for somebody else. And, you know, no shame to anybody who wants--like, who wants to be a career... career person, but there's more than that. You know, how did you navigate some of the--like, the fear and anxiety that came with, like, making that jump? So you came--I'm not gonna get into your pockets, but I would presume, I could be wrong, that perhaps your career at Goldman Sachs gave you a little bit more financial flexibility to, like, make certain moves and take certain risks that other people couldn't take. Is that a wrong assumption, or is that--you know, did any of that come into play in terms of, like--do you feel like, because of your job, you were able to--you had more space to kind of take that leap?Kori: I think my job gave me--and, like, the money I made while I was there, it definitely gave me the flexibility to be able to go to Syracuse's Newhouse School of Communication and figure out, like, "Could I make this journalism career a thing?" I think it definitely gave me that because I had the confidence to know that if, for whatever reason, it didn't work out, I would be able to go back and have, you know, a very good-paying job, but also, like, enough money, for the most part, to help me at least get through, like, the schooling part.Zach: So then--so let's talk a little bit about the concept of producing, right? So you're a content creator. You're a producer. It's a term though that's thrown around quite a bit, right? Especially, like, in today's digital age. What does it really mean in your mind to be a producer in the media space today?Kori: I look at content producers in general as people that are creating new original, authentic shows, articles, media content in general. So not the companies that are aggregators of information. Like, there are a lot of companies out there that are basically just pulling stuff from other people's websites, but they're not actually holistically creating something that was not there before, and that's really a major differentiator in the space, because--to your point about a lot of different, like, black and brown minority-based concepts popping up, you've got to be able to stand out on your own and be creating in a space that no one else is already creating in. I think that we definitely need minority spaces, but we shouldn't divide and conquer, right? We're stronger together. We don't necessarily need 50 different versions of co-working spaces for people of color. I'm not saying that we only need one, but would it make more sense to pool our efforts together in order to create something bigger? Zach: No, you're absolutely right. It's interesting though because it's--like, so kind of going on the co-working space thing and, like, other ideas, one, because, like, our networks--I don't know, our networks are just different, and also, like, because sometimes we come into spaces late, or we--and when I say come into spaces, I mean we don't have the same amount of support to, like, be early adopters in the spaces that we may see our white counterparts do. So, like, we'll come into a space, and we'll come into the space at the same time, and so it looks oversaturated, right? But I actually--like, I don't know. So talk to me more about--so you zoomed in on co-working spaces twice now. Like, talk to me a little bit more about what you're seeing in that space and why--like, what's your point of view on it? 'Cause, like, I think they're really cool. I'm a consultant, so I have a co-working space all of the time because of, like, just the nature of my job. Like, I can just go to any home office, like, through the firm that I work at, but I think that they're a pretty cool idea, and they seem to be used, but, like, I'm not really as plugged in. So, like, I'd be open to you educating me on it.Kori: Yeah. So, I mean, I don't--I have a co-working space as well, but I don't really use it that much, and it's not a co-working space at a place for people of color, but specifically on that front, like, I do know a couple of founders that are trying to launch their own versions of, like, specifically of women of color, others specifically for founders of color in a particular sector, like, that sort of thing. I actually feel like that is a very fragmented marketplace, almost much in the way of The Wing, which is a very popular all-female co-working space that WeWork has actually invested in, and I definitely think there's a space where, you know, women want to be, but one of the main issues with the WeWork is that there are no men allowed, which, if you're a smaller business--which most people that use co-working spaces tend to be--you don't always want to have to go outside of your co-working space for a meeting. And I think that there are other ones that have popped up along the way. Like, there's one for women executives, right, where it's also fragmenting the market, but it's fragmenting the market in a way that makes people feel like they're being part of an elite club, if you know what I mean. Like, "Oh, you have to be at a certain level at whatever your organization is to be invited to be a member here." I think that sort of way of strategically planning out how you roll out different co-working spaces for people of color is a better strategic roadmap to success than just saying, "We're opening up a place for people of color."Zach: What is the--what would you recommend as the approach to, like, unify and desegment that space?Kori: Right. I think the best way to look at it is like, "This is the community that we're trying to get in front of," or that we're trying to help, and really pinpointing "What are the most important things to those people?" And I can actually liken that back to CultureBanx, like, and going into roadmapping out how do you deliver content to this so-called new woke generation in a way that they can actually identify with and see a reflection of themselves and their community with? And when you think of co-working spaces, like, what is it that's most important to the community of potential co-working clients and users that makes the most sense? And back to CultureBanx, for us it was everything that tends to be pushed that does really well in front of minority audiences has something to do around entertainment, music, celebrity. So it's how do we bring that to what we do so that it doesn't seem like it's such a far off leap for people to be interested?Zach: So then what does it look like--you know, let's talk about, like, the professional who--maybe they're not looking to start their own company, they're not looking to--they're just trying to survive at their job, right? Let's talk about, like, the concept of producing and, like, bringing these--and, like, the principles that you're talking about with CultureBanx, and how do you think those principles can be applied to a black and brown professional at work? Because ultimately there seems to be a certain level of purposefulness and intentionality. That's the better word. A certain level of intentionality and strategy that it comes to really producing effectively and really kind of managing brand. Do you think any of that could be effectively leveraged, utilized, for folks in their 9-to-5 jobs? Kori: Yes, but I think it always starts with figuring out--like, knowing your end goal and working backwards. So as I mentioned earlier, when I thought my end goal was to become a partner at Goldman, it was "Okay, well, I want to become a partner. I'm only a senior analyst now." Like, "Let's scale back from partner and work our way backwards and see what it takes to get there," to your point, like, your own self brand management at work every day. And funny enough, this is something that a lot of people don't know about me, I actually left Goldman about two months after I got promoted, which is--but I had already been--but this is when I talk about the planning. I had already been planning, like, my strategic, like, exit. As you all know, I'm sure, that are listening right now, you know, you apply to a school, you have to wait to get in, that sort of thing. You know, take the tests or whatever tests you need to be admitted to these universities. So, like, I had already been strategically planning that, but I had also still been working on that plan of "If I do stay and try to navigate my way to someday becoming partner--" I was still working that plan too and, you know, just came to that crossroads of "Huh, do I--" Even after I got promoted I almost decided that I was gonna stay and not even pursue this whole journalism path. I'm like, "Oh, this happened sooner than expected." So, you know, I was on the high-performing track as they call it at some companies, the fast track to moving up. Like, there was no real reason for me to want to leave other than I felt like my life's purpose and calling was greater than what I was currently doing. And when you are constantly in this strategic mode of planning out "What does it look like in my 9-to-5 every day to be able to push to the next level?" Everything about what you do has to be very heavily managed, as a person of color especially, and I know that in corporate America people try to heavily, like, push this whole concept of mentorship and sponsorship. I will tell you I'm not a huge fan of mentors, and every time I say that people will, like, give me their pushback, which is fine. You're entitled to your own opinion. But especially in corporate America, sponsorship is significantly more powerful than mentors, because mentors, they can also be sponsors, but you know how much more effective it is if you come to somebody with a game plan already and say, "Would you be willing to help me navigate executing this plan or this strategy?" As opposed to going to a mentor and being like, "You know, I'm really trying to figure out what role I want," or "I'm moving to the next department and thinking through--" Like, show up with some skin in the game already. Like, "I've already done X, Y, and Z, and it would be great if you could help facilitate." Now, obviously most people don't want to--I shouldn't say they don't want to. Most people want to feel like they're imparting their wisdom and knowledge on you, but if you're in a position where you can make that person look good by helping them or by them getting you to the next level, that only sets you up for more success.Zach: No, you're absolutely right. I also do think that there's a certain level--I don't know. I'm not trying to, like, pathologize nobody, and I'm not a psychologist, [but] I do believe that there is a meta-narrative of, like, non-minorities paternalistically trying to tell black and brown folks what to do, and they kind of revel in, you know, putting people in their place or just raising them in some way. [laughs] So I 100% agree with you. I think a lot of that stuff is often, like, self-aggrandizing and ego-centric. To your point around--like, I think it's more about the relationships you can build and what value you can directly say that you helped somebody else with to help them be successful. That's the way that I've seen people really climb up, right? It's not necessarily being like, "Oh, this person pulls me aside and gives me things to work on, and that's how I got promoted so fast." That's not really the case, 'cause you and I both have seen folks, you know, in an industry who have no business being in the position that they're in, and yet, you know, they're there, you know?Kori: Yeah. I mean, I think we all see that in this country, starting at the very top at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.Zach: Oh, wait a minute. Hold on now. [and i oop sfx]Kori: Not getting deeply into politics, but just saying, like it or hate it, if you agree with his politics or not--'cause people could say the same thing about 44, President Obama. Like him or hate him, you could argue one way or another and say maybe he didn't deserve--purely based on a resume, not basing on anything else. Purely basing it on so-called skills and qualifications for the role, you could make a case that he wasn't necessarily qualified, and it could be justified. You could make the same case for the current president, that he is not qualified for some of the same on the opposite end of the spectrum. I look at Barack and I say--excuse me, let me put some respect on that man's name. I look at President Obama--Zach: Come on, now.Kori: [laughs] And say that--it would be easier for people to say, you know, he doesn't actually have any business experience. He hasn't been serving in public office for any lengthy amount of time. Like, things that you would call into question for someone who would be taking the office of president. And on the other end of the spectrum you have president Trump, and you can say, "Yeah, he's run some corporations." They, on the outside, seem successful, but as we all know, when you dig in there are lots of question marks and, you know, missing documents, but you would say, "But he's never served in public office. What does he know about actually serving people essentially that aren't, you know, paying customers in that way?" Outside of the taxes that we pay. And you would question whether or not that someone is fit for that position. So yes, to your point, we all find that. "Why is this person in this position?" Well, most of the time it comes down to a likability factor. It doesn't come down to skill sets. And that's really my point, is that it's proven at the highest level. Like, something that my mom would always say to my older brother Kenan and I--primarily it started when we were in college--she would tell us, "You can either network or not work." Like, you going into work every day and doing your job that you're hired for, that's only 50% of your job. The other 50% needs to be you networking with people, because you don't know where your next opportunity is gonna come from, and your next opportunity, the likelihood that it comes from what you're doing sitting at your desk every day is very slim. It mostly comes from that person that you got coffee with once every two or three months.Zach: And I think this is the--so I don't know. I feel like you and I should actually have, like, another conversation. This isn't, like--you know, we don't typically do, like, in-depth conversations about different points of view on, like, whiteness or just, like, privilege, but, like, I'm curious to get your point of view on, like, even that. Like, that right there, the idea that you're building relationships off of the people that you're getting coffee with. Like, there are barriers to making sure that you even get that coffee, you know what I mean? Like, there are certain people that get invited to get coffee and then some people who don't, right? And then there's--and then as you even get to, like, the executive levels, you know, so many sales relationships are built on historical relationship equity that black and brown people just don't have 'cause they haven't been in these spaces. And so, like, I'm curious as to, like, your point of view on what does it look like--when you talk about relationships, when you talk about, like, navigating--and we kind of strayed away from the concept of producing, but I still think we're there. Like, what does it look like to use those tools to then, like, create those connections as much as you can?Kori: Yeah, getting invited to coffee versus, you know, kind of pushing your way in, I think that as a minority myself and other minorities especially working in corporate America need to take that ownership of organizing, of basically being like, "I'm gonna set up this sort of coffee situation." And I can give you all an example of my own personal story. So I worked at a media startup called Cheddar before I launched CultureBanx, and I actually knew the founder of Cheddar for a year or so before he ever even launched that company because he used to be the president of BuzzFeed, and then after that he was the CEO of The Daily Mail, and I knew him because I would book him as a guest to come on this show I used to produce for called Squawk Alley on CNBC. [owww sfx] And I used to just, you know, book him, and you kind of just build relationships, right, from being a producer, with different people, and that is essentially how I got that next role. So it had nothing to do with the fact of what I got up and went into work to do every day. Zach: Right. And again, what I continue to hear is just the willingness to put yourself out there. It's just so interesting, because, like, with non-whiteness I believe comes a certain level of unfamiliarity, right? So, like, you have the--if you don't look like somebody, even if--so let's just say there's two white people, right? They may have completely different backgrounds. Like, they may have completely different religious, socio-economic, even, like, cultural backgrounds, but that, like--the benefit of looking like somebody, there's certain grace that's given and space that's made to, like, more easily build relationships, where as if you're a person of color, like, what I'm hearing a lot--even though you're not saying it explicitly, Kori--is, like, you had to put yourself out there. You had to be enterprising. You had to connect the dots. You had to be much more strategic and intentional with your time and with, like, even how you present yourself and the things that you're doing and what you offer, right? Like, you had to really come--you had to really be thinking of a position of value creation, and that's great for you. Like, you're clearly a beast, right? Like, you've been--you've made moves moves, but what does it look like for--like, teaching that to somebody who isn't wired that way. Right? That could be challenging.Kori: It definitely is, and I am in no way a master of teaching it to other people. I know I have personal friends that say, "Kori, you're really great at public speaking," or "You're really great at going in and selling yourself or whatever it is that you're doing to other people." This is what I will say - it's a learned skill. Like, I didn't come out of the womb, like, doing this. There's definitely certain personality traits that are more akin to being able to just pick up these sort of things and these sort of characteristics, but it's a learned skill day in and day out, and it can start very basic. Going back to the coffee thing. Like, getting comfortable--which I know this is overused--with the uncomfortable, with making yourself uncomfortable. And if you're not the type who's gonna send a random email--which I love when people say to me, "Well, I mean, what am I gonna say?" I'm like--to your point about it kind of being a bit narcissistic with mentorship and that, people do love to talk about themselves. So just put it out there that, "Hey, you know, I'd like to talk to you. I'd like to learn more about what you do." And make it more about them. Normally, like, if you're in a relationship and you break up with somebody, you give them the "It's not you, it's me" speech. In business, give them the "It's not about me, it's all about you" speech. Like, when you send the email, like, "Hey, this whole thing is about you," right, "'cause you're so great, you're so fantastic. I just want to know about what you're doing." As a way to soften the introduction or the awkwardness that you think lies there, because you might not really know someone, even though that's something that you eventually might want to do or an area that you might want to move into. You have to do more, because you didn't go to boarding school with So-and-so, you know what I mean? You probably didn't go to all of the right Ivys, and even black people that have gone to Ivys, like--Zach: Listen, I've heard. Yeah, I've heard the experiences are different.Kori: Yeah. Like, if you didn't grow up in that world, like, you're still not necessarily accepted. So I think it's just you have to put yourself out there because they're not gonna know to contact you. Like, your parents, you know what I'm saying, y'all don't go sell off, you know, Martha's vineyard [?]. You didn't grow up going to summer camp for two months after you left boarding school, so basically you only saw your parents on holidays, and you're not even in college. You're only in the seventh grade. Zach: Right. You didn't go to Vermont to make artisanal pickles, you know what I'm saying?Kori: No, you didn't do any of that. So they already have 10--and that's just, like, at your level. Now you've got to think about how connected these parents are. Like, you're fighting a major uphill battle, and you can't go in every day and say, "I'm heads down. I'm gonna do a great job," which is something that they try to preach to you, right? Like, "Just go in. Work hard. Excel at your role." Like, "That's how you're gonna see opportunities."Zach: That's not true. Like--[laughs]Kori: You know why you're not gonna see any opportunities? Because your head is down at your desk or on the computer screen.Zach: And meanwhile we're upset. We're over here like [what more do you want from me? sfx] You know? It's just like--we're doing everything we can. So I 100% hear you and I agree with you, right? And not that I need to agree with you - this is a space of open ideas, you know? So diversity of thought is not real, but we do appreciate diversity of thought as it pertains or intersects with lived experiences of black and brown folks. So this has been super cool. Look, we've talked about CultureBanx, we've talked around CultureBanx. One thing we haven't done is talk about where people can learn more about CultureBanx, so please drop the info in here. We'll make sure to put it in the podcast notes and everything, but please let us know.Kori: Yes. Check us out at CultureBanx.com. You can find all of the content on our website. Sign up for our newsletter, daily newsletter, bringing you the latest, greatest, most important business news for the culture, as we say, every single day. You can also listen to the CultureBanx daily news briefing on any smart speaker device and also on Spotify. Everything is @CultureBanx on social media. Luckily we got in. There's no other company called CultureBanx, so it's the same--Zach: Aye. People underestimate how powerful that is. If you have the only name and you've got the domains--'cause let me tell you something. I've got--no, keep going. I'm messing your plug up. Keep going.Kori: [laughs] No, you're not, but it is important. Like, everything is literally just @CultureBanx. With an X, people. Don't forget.Zach: Please say the X, you know what I'm saying? Hold on. [Flex bomb sfx, both laugh] Oh, my goodness. Well, look, this has been super dope, and, you know, we just really appreciate you. Before we let you go, any parting words or shout-outs?Kori: Parting words? I think the main parting words I would have is something that we say on our show, which is just keep building for the culture. Zach: Come on, now.Kori: We gotta do it for each other.Zach: [straight up sfx] You're absolutely right. Now, look, this has been a dope conversation. Thank you all for listening to the Living Corporate podcast. Now, look, y'all know--I wasn't trying to mess up Kori's plug, but y'all know we got all the Living Corporates, okay? We got livingcorporate.co, livingcorporate.org, livingcorporate.net, livingcorporate.us. We don't have livingcorporate.com. We have living-corporate--please say the dash--dot com, but we don't have livingcorporate.com. Australia has livingcorporate.com. Believe it or not, Kori, Australia, and they're selling corporate stuff. But see, the SEO looking kind of brolic out here, 'cause now when you type in Living Corporate--they used to be at the top. Now they're like, you know, in 8th or 9th. You know what I'm saying? Like, we applying pressure, you feel me? One day the brand will be brolic enough where we're gonna go to Australia and we will politely, respectfully, yank that domain right on back, and we're gonna have all the livingcorporates, and we're gonna just sit on a mountain of domains, you know what I'm saying?Kori: Which is not a bad idea. I'm actually helping out this other startup that's trying to modernize central banks, and the name of the company--which I won't throw out there right now--is so generic, and the person, the founder, has been using, like, different versions of the name of the company to try and set up, you know, different social accounts, and they have--even the website's name is not what she calls the actual name of the company, and I'm like, "This is too confusing. Like, people don't know where to go."Zach: 100%. People be having, like, the dopest ideas and be like, "Oh, we're gonna launch Bread.com." Like, yo, fam, you gotta figure out something else. Like--Kori: Right. You had to launch Bread.com when the internet first started. Like, the late '80s, mid-to-late '80s. Like, that's when you needed to launch that, but at this point no.Zach: Straight up. Man, this is funny. This is, like, the first, like, interrupted outro we've done, but it's really good. I like it, and we might have to start doing this moving forward. All right, y'all. Look, you can check us out. We're everywhere. In fact, just Google Living Corporate at this point. That's right. Stunt. That's right. Lowkey flex, but it's an honest flex. So Google Living Corporate. We out here. If you have questions you want to email us, check us out at LivingCorporatePodcast@gmail.com. Hit us up on the DMs. Twitter is @LivingCorp_Pod, Instagram is @LivingCorporate, and until next time, this has been Zach, and you have been talking to Kori Hale, CEO and founder of CultureBanx. Peace.

Zach speaks with the founders of Dipper, Jacinta Mathis and Netta Jenkins, about the value of your personal voice. They also share their journeys that led them to create Dipper and talk about their plans for the platform in 2020.Connect with Jacinta and Netta on LinkedIn!TRANSCRIPTZach: What's up, y'all? It's Zach with Living Corporate, and you know how we do, right? We come on, I say something like "What's up, y'all? It's Zach with Living Corporate," and then I maybe remind y'all that we're a platform that amplifies the voices of black and brown people at work, right? You should get the drift now. We're at, like, episode a hundred and something. Now, as you also should know by now, I'm bringing to y'all some more fire for ya head top, some dope guests. Now, this is really only the second time in the history of Living Corporate that we've interviewed two people at the same time, so, you know what I'm saying, shout-out to us for that, and I'm just really excited 'cause we're getting--I don't want to say two for the price of one 'cause that's kind of cheesy, right? But I'm saying we have two incredible guests, Netta Jenkins and Jacinta Mathis. Jacinta: Hey.Netta: Woo-hoo!Zach: What's up, y'all? Now, look, we're just gonna get straight into it. I'm not even gonna go through the whole intros 'cause y'alls bios, if I was to try to do it, you know what I'm saying, I'ma take up all the time. [Jacinta and Netta laugh] So for those of us who don't know y'all, please share a little bit about yourselves.Netta: Yeah. Jacinta, would you like me to start off? Or--Jacinta: Go for it, girl. Go for it.Netta: Okay. Well, I guess I'll start off with something fun. So I'm an Afrobeats living room dancer. Love Afrobeats.Zach: Oh, turn up. Come on, Afrobeats.Netta: [laughs] But aside from that, I'm the author of Self-Advocacy & Confidence for a Fearless Career, a Liberian-American woman. I'm a wife, a mom to a four-month-old baby boy and a six-year-old, and I'm also co-founder of Dipper. You know, by night, and vice president of global inclusion for Mosaic Group and Ask Applications by day in a full-time capacity. And I'd say, you know, in my full-time role I focus heavily on breaking systemic gaps and publicly challenging the notion of simply adding diversity doesn't equate to an inclusive and equitable work environment. And I'm just really excited about our Dipper platform that, you know, helps guide professionals to a better workplace, whether good, bad, or indifferent, and we're really, you know, giving people of color a voice, and we're holding companies accountable and helping them to be improved at the same time.Zach: Well, come on now, Mrs. Jenkins. I appreciate you.Netta: Hey, hey, hey. [laughs]Zach: Come on, now. Wait a minute, now. Let me give us this Flex bomb. [Flex bomb sfx] You know what I'm saying? That was incredible.Jacinta: That was well-deserved. Well-deserved.Zach: Well-earned, absolutely. Okay, now go on, Jacinta. You got it.Jacinta: Yeah, so I am Jacinta Mathis. I am a Floridian who's stuck in New York. I've been here for about 11 years, and I don't think I'm leaving any time soon. I'm a data-driven performance marketer. I also focus on product growth and really feel like that's my specialty. And, you know, I'm working on building amazing products and then telling people about them. That's a lot of what I do. I'm also an evolving executive at an amazing tech company and co-founder of Dipper with Netta that we feel is revolutionary in providing this digital safe space for people of color that we have, you know, formed ourselves, with our own network. We're just making it something that can exist at scale and reach millions of people. And also I am, you know, a life partner and a mother to my amazing little family.Zach: Wait a minute, now. [Cardi B "ow" sfx] You know what I'm saying? [all laugh] So let's do this, let's do this. You talked a bit about who you are, but what's been y'all's journey, right, in becoming the entrepreneurs, public speakers, educators, corporate leaders, you know, and advocates that y'all are today? Like, how did y'all get to this place where y'all came together to really create Dipper? 'Cause I want to talk about Dipper as we talk about really, like, the value of your personal voice, but, like, how did we get here?Jacinta: Yeah. I think this is how Netta and I connected, because we were both raised--like, somebody nurtured us, watered us, so that we could become the sisters we are today, and really I think our legacy and what has happened before we even existed really helped mold the journey that we live today. And so, you know, I moved to New York to be a writer, and I ended up working at interning--when you could intern for free and it was legal--at PR agencies. I also worked in a restaurant, and I also had a gig at Target, and through working in a restaurant I met someone who was a media seller and kind of told me how ad agencies in the city work and really helped mentor me into a role at an ad agency, and that was kind of how my media buying, kind of advertising and marketing career really kicked off. And then when everything became digital I kind of literally fell into a tech company that ended up not being successful, but then I ended up at a really successful one where I met Netta and really helped build my career. And I think from there I realized, you know, tech would be a big part of everything that I did, and really this kind of experience and providing a safe place was something that I looked for everywhere I worked, and so when--just talking to Netta, it was like, "We have to make this a thing." Like, "It's something we have to do together."Netta: Yeah, absolutely. I think for me, when I start thinking of the journey, it dates back to when I was much younger, and so, you know, my African parents, they really stressed the importance of education and confidence at a very young age. So while kids were on their summer vacation or playing outside, I was the one reading books and creating goals. And I read a lot. I asked a lot of questions. Sometimes teachers were a little overwhelmed. Like, "Damn, she's asking too many questions." And then also being able to hear my parents tell me, "Listen, you have the ability to create change," really gave me the confidence to do anything that I had set my mind to. And so it started off by me becoming president of the freshmen class, where I was one of only three black people in the school at that time, to heading off to college, graduating in three years instead of four. Just, like, really being ambitious in all of my goals and then starting a casting company in college, and really that was to create a safe space for women to model and act in the entertainment industry. Because obviously it's very--it's, like, predominantly male-driven when it comes to, you know, the clients. And then business led me to Boston, where I completed my MBA, and off I was after that to New York, because predominantly a large amount of my clients were located in New York. But unfortunately there came a point where, you know, my business that I had grown in college and had expanded was no longer sustainable, and so I started looking at technology recruiting contract opportunities because I just couldn't see myself in a full-time opportunity immediately after owning my own business. I'm like, "How am I gonna be able to report to somebody?" So that whole concept in my head, I just couldn't wrap my head around that, but I've always been passionate about technology like Jacinta, and data, and specifically providing opportunities for people. Love seeing people win, and that led me into my contract recruiter role with the current company that I'm with today. That turned into a full-time opportunity, and I was able to jump from level to level in a matter of four years, and now at a VP level--[cha-ching sfx]--uh-oh. Cha-ching. [both laugh] But, you know, I think what it is is there's a lot of people that ask me, like, "Netta, how were you able to get to the level that you're at so quickly?" And it's really about building meaningful relationships. I think executives were able to trust me. Executives saw that the employees trusted me. They liked the boldness, sort of the non-sugarcoating attitude in "We're not gonna have quotas here." You know, "We really have to dig deep and deal with some of these systemic gaps." And then just simply the ability to empower employees to create change, and I always say that the key to success has been persistence, working smart, and really never quitting, and I'm really, really excited that I'm working alongside with Jacinta. We worked together at the same organization for many years, and she's phenomenal. So to be able to have, you know, a teammate that you can learn from every single day is truly inspiring, and so I'm happy that we're in this place where we're at now.Zach: Well, come on, then. You know, I just--this is dope, and you've already kind of touched on it a little bit, but you said earlier about, like, using technology to help people. I'm really curious about, you know, your passion around that, because there's been multiple studies shown that even though the world is becoming more and more technically advanced and we're seeing--like, we're seeing opportunities open up within these tech spaces, [but] we're not necessarily seeing opportunities for black and brown people growing at an equal rate, right? Like, we're still seeing a bit of like, "Hm." I don't want to say segregation. We're not seeing, like, any type of uptick when it comes to opportunities and employment and progression and succession, and so I think that's really awesome that we have people in these spaces who are advocating for those voices and those people. So check this out. Today we're talking about--I said all of that as a digression in this mug. Okay, so now, today we're talking about the value of your personal voice. So, like, when did each of you realize that your voices mattered, especially within the workplace? Like, was there ever a moment where you were like, "Man, wait a minute. I can actually speak up and it mean something."Jacinta: Netta, do you want to go first? Or do you want me to? [both laugh]Netta: No, you go for it.Jacinta: I think--I feel like it's fortunate and unfortunate it took other people recognizing it before I really recognized it. I think Netta kind of touched on this a little bit too. Like, people will talk about you when you're not in the room, right? And hopefully those people are sponsors and will advocate for you, and I think it really became a point where it was like, "Oh, Jacinta should be here." Like, literally getting grabbed and brought into a meeting, you know? Or someone saying, "Oh, we think we should run with this product change. What does Jacinta think?" Or, you know, really wanting to understand your input and value, and then when you present something seeing people jump into action or, you know, really seeing change happen. I think that's when I realized--I was like, "Oh, wait. People hear me. Like, they're really listening to me, and they're really taking what comes out of my mouth as word and that it's something that we should do," and I think sometimes, especially as a black woman in a corporate space, you may tell yourself to, like, mute your voice a little bit, but I was finding that what is kind of the stereotype was what people wanted me to embrace in my own way, especially--'cause sometimes you're in a room and nobody's saying "This is wrong." So they're like, "Oh, we know Jacinta will call it a spade," you know? [both laugh] So it's really having people around me that helped empower me to realize, like, my voice mattered and that people were hearing me, and then I just got more--you get more comfortable in that, and then having your network--like, I had Netta, and sometimes we would talk to each other, and I would bounce an idea off of her or show her a presentation before it went before the executive team or the board, just because I was like, "Well, what do you think about this?" And that helped me strengthen my voice too in the workplace.Netta: Yeah, absolutely. I think Jacinta's spot on with that. It's really about, you know, being able to lean on those people within the organization that you trust that empower you to have that voice, you know, to be bold, to speak up for yourself, to advocate for yourself and advocate for others. And so, you know, Jacinta was definitely that sounding block for me, and she still is even as business partners. We're always bouncing ideas off of each other, work-related situations like, "Hey, how should we get through this? How should we handle this?" And it's easier that way, right? It's harder when you're alone, and that's how come I think Jacinta and I both use the line "It really takes a village to create change and to get things moving." And Jacinta is my village, [laughs] so I'm thankful for that. I also feel early on as well I started noticing that I had a little voice and my voice mattered somewhat. Like I mentioned before, I was one of three in high school, and in middle school I was, like, one of two black people, and I remember just, you know, a whole bunch of racial slurs said. We were the only black family in that neighborhood at the time. It was a pretty, like, affluent neighborhood, and I remember going home to my mom and crying about some of the things that were said to me, and the one pivotal thing that my mom said to me is, "I didn't bring you on this earth to cry. I brought you here to create change." And I kid you not, that has been the most powerful line for me throughout my life, 'cause I always think about that. I'm like, "Wait, hold on. My mom brought me on this earth to create change." You know? And so when I got into high school, that's the reason why I ran for president of the freshmen class, because I wanted to create change. I knew of, you know, the inequities and the challenges that were going on. I was tired of them just putting up a picture of Martin Luther King and thinking like, "All right, we're done with Black History Month!" And then that's it, you know? I was really ready to challenge that, and I did, and I think that really prepared me for the work that I do now.Zach: So then let's talk a little bit about the work, right, that y'all are doing now, and about Dipper, right? And, like, by the way, the website is super fire. I very much so enjoyed the layout. I liked it a lot. But, like, how did this passion that y'all have and this realization, this self-realization of your voice and it mattering, play into the creation of Dipper?Jacinta: Yeah. It's so weird. I feel like every answer we're gonna be talking about our parents, right? [both laugh]Zach: That's fine.Jacinta: Yeah. So my dad was a chief diversity and inclusion officer for--I would say in the early '90s, before, like, diversity and inclusion was a thing--Zach: Your dad?Jacinta: Yeah, my father.Zach: Wait a minute. Wait, wait, wait. So you said your father was a chief inclusion and diversity officer in the '90s? [record scratch sfx, all laugh]Jacinta: You're like, "Whoa, whoa, whoa." Yeah. And so, like, before it was really a thing. He was a Fortune 500 company and pushing them to make strides to create these more inclusive workplaces, not only for their employees but also for their vendors, and just seeing a lot of those, like, conversations happen at our dinner table--my mother was an attorney at a law firm, and I think she was one of the only black attorneys, and she was also a female. And so just kind of--these are the conversations that you would come home to for dinner, and just hearing about the things that they were dealing with and how, you know, how they would get through it and how they would grow and maybe even how they decided to exit, you know? And then working with Netta and really seeing how we built this village and this corporate space to talk to each other about raises, promotions, breastfeeding advice, whatever, you know? We were leaning--although it's important to lean in, sometimes you also have to lean on somebody, [and i oop sfx] and so we had to lean on each other, you know? So we met--I think it was lunch. I don't want to be cliche and say it was brunch. And we were just, you know, articulating how this needed to become something that other people could participate in, and with our backgrounds in tech it just seemed like the right path. It seemed like the thing that we should do. And I think in my heart I wanted Netta to be like, "That was a horrible idea," [laughs] but she was like, "Girl, yes. We have to do this," and, you know, immediately we connected with a company that we knew--he actually went to college with me and is an alpha, and [I'm an AK?], and so I reached out to him immediately and was like, "We need a dope website," and they were able to work with us to create that. And I really feel like it's been, like, this catalyst that has helped us launch and helped us reach so many people. Zach: Well, shout-out to the Divine Nine, you know what I'm saying? [they laugh] I respect how you slipped that in there. You know, I'm a [?], but I always respect my--Jacinta: [laughing] It was not intentional.Zach: No, no, no, but it just comes out, you know?Jacinta: This is true. It just leaps out, yes. [laughs]Zach: Can you--I know we're gonna get to Netta's side, but I just want to pause really fast. I'm gonna respectfully ask that you tell your sister, Kamala Harris, to promote this episode when it comes out. We won't use any type of logos, so don't sue us please. But if you could just--[all laughing]Jacinta: I will [?] her right now. I will slide in her DMs. [laughs]Zach: Please. If you could. We'll even--I was about to joke and say we'll even put, like, some [?]--but I don't want any type of [Law and Order sfx], you know? No issues.Jacinta: Yes, I respect that.Zach: Okay. Well, cool, I appreciate the answer. Netta, please go ahead.Netta: Yeah, no, I--oh, my gosh. I don't have much to add other than Jacinta was definitely spot on. That's exactly how it happened, and we're really excited about this--you know, overall excited about this platform because it gives people a chance to really share their experiences, and also it gives us a chance to hold companies accountable if they are not doing it right. It gives us a chance to guide professionals of color in the right direction. It's funny - I'm a part of, you know, many different Slack channels. One in particular, Black Tech Women, and just today there were a couple of people that were just talking about, "Hey, I wish I could gain insight on this particular company," or "Do you guys know what's happening to this technology company?" You know, "How's the culture there for people of color?" And I'm like, "Listen, head to ourdipper.com, because we definitely provide that type of insight." So there's a lot more people that's looking for that. They don't want to waste their time in organizations that aren't going to value them, and we're really excited to be, you know, launching something like this that can push professionals of color in the right direction.Zach: I know we're kind of talking, like, around it. Like, we're saying, like, you know, at a high level what it is, but, like, from what we talked about, Netta, in our conversation--like, help me understand. If we were to, like, kind of compare it to something, is it almost like Glassdoor but, like, for the black people? And brown people?Netta: I don't want to say Glassdoor, right? We could say maybe, like, if Glassdoor, Yelp, and Black Lives Matter had a baby. Zach: Oh, snap. Okay, got you. I got you.Jacinta: That was good.Netta: Can I get a boom or a bang?Zach: Oh, hold on. Hold on, I apologize. Hold on, hold on, hold on. [Flex bomb sfx] You know what I'm saying? Hold on. [kids applause sfx] You know what I'm saying? Hold on. [kids applause sfx] You know what I'm saying? I got y'all. I got y'all. I was gonna make, like, a really bad joke and say, like, "Is it like Vibraniumdoor?" Jacinta: [laughs] And it's really focused--I think Netta and I--and this is all based on the type of people you have in your network, but, like, I know with my girls, like, you can complain--we can complain to each other. We can vent, but after you're done talking, they're gonna be like, "So what are you doing?" Like, "What are you doing? What are we doing? What are you doing different?" Like, "Are you gonna make a move?" And I think that's where we saw the gap. It's like, "Yes, we want you to vent, we want you to have a safe space," but we also think it is time and there needs to be a space for someone to ask an organization, "What are you doing? "What are you doing to fix it?" "What are you doing to make this better?" "What are you doing to retain these talented people who are exiting, and they all happen to be brown?" You know, just really addressing critical issues and making that information, you know, accessible to them but within reason. Accessible and actionable, you know? 'Cause this is a safe place, and it is an anonymous platform, you know? And that is the key. We want people to feel protected, because they are, and I think a lot of times we don't speak out. And Netta often talks to me about this, like, "People aren't speaking out because they don't feel safe." And so that was very important to us, that this community is our top priority, and, like, that is where we want our goal to be.Zach: So it kind of sounds--again, while keeping people safe, it's like you really got receipts on people. So let's just say, like, if--I don't know, I ain't tryna mess up my sponsorship dollars so I'm not gonna say a company, but let's just say Insert Company Here was like, "We're mad inclusive," and y'all come back with the receipts looking like [haha sfx]. Like, "No, you're not," you know what I'm saying? We got all these people saying there's some issues you need to shape up. But we also talked about the fact that, like, it's not just for airing organizations out. It also can be a place where people are also giving positive feedback and stories, right?Netta: Right.Jacinta: Absolutely.Netta: And overall, we want these companies improved, you know? If they're not doing well, we want to be able to provide them with the solutions to solve that issue. We're not leaving them high and dry, and, you know, I think that's the difference with other platforms or a Glassdoor or a Yelp. ["stupid" sfx plays in the background] We're looking to improve these companies. Jacinta: Mm-hmm. And you want to know where--like, you want to know if some place is a good place for you to go to, and we get--just as many bad reviews as we get we get good ones, and, you know, we get people who are like, "I've had a great experience here. I've been able to grow. I've been developed. I have an amazing mentor. I want more people who are brown and more people of color to come here. I don't want to be the only one." You know? So I want to see them here more and know about the opportunities here. Zach: No, it's really cool, and I do hear your point around, like, you're not just gathering the data just to gather the data. Like, there's a consulting play to it too, right? Where you then say, "Look, this is what people are saying good and bad. Here are our recommendations," and then you're able to actually come alongside them to your point and actually, like, be a partner. And I think it's interesting because there's so many organizations out there, even as we have these group meetings and Slacks and folks are venting and stuff, [and] there really has yet to be one central location where we'll be like, "Mm-mm. Dawg, don't go over there. Mm-mm." You know what I'm saying? But it should be like that. Like, you know, the Lion King remake came out. People want to act like the Lion King remake wasn't fire. I thought it was great, but whatever. So remember, like, when Mufasa was, like, looking over the cliff, right, and he was talking to Simba, and he was like, "Everything the light touches is your kingdom," and Simba was like, "Oh, snap. What about over there?" He said, "That is the elephant graveyard. You don't ever go over there. Relax." That's pretty much like--you know, that's an opportunity for Dipper too, but, like, we don't really have that. We don't have a collective, you know, Pride Land overview of the workplace as it were.Netta: Yeah, and companies--I believe it was last year, McKinsey and Company did a study, and, like, companies are spending more than $8 billion on diversity and inclusion efforts. And we're like, "Who is that benefiting?" Zach: It ain't benefiting nobody. We've still got blackface on company pencils.Jacinta: Exactly. We're not on your board of directors. Few and far between of us are CEOs of the Fortune 500, 1000 companies, and, you know, we get pings--Netta and I get pings all of the time, especially in, like, the VC world, of people saying, "Do you know somebody who could be my chief of operations? Do you know somebody who could be my chief of people?" And we're like, "Absolutely." Like, I will respond to people with a list, LinkedIn profiles connected, you know? Because we feel we are here, we exist, and there just really needs to be this space for us. And there are people also who have done this before us, you know? There are people who may have been peers to my father [kids applause sfx] and they have a lot of insights to share, but they don't have a place to share them, you know? So it's kind of like we can't all go to the conference, we can't all go to the talk, but you could participate in our website and go to ourdipper.com.Netta: Right, and I think companies definitely have this warped perception of that "Okay, well, if we have a few black and brown faces, we've won," you know? "Let's put out the PR," and obviously it's much deeper than that like Jacinta was saying. There's the equity piece. Are we giving people the access and the exposure to not only move up but to have a voice and are able to lead, you know, in their own way? A lot of the times, when we hear about black and brown folks' experiences that are in high-level positions, they're still kind of oppressed, right? They really don't have that power to lead and that confidence. So, you know, those are key data points that we definitely want to bring out and share, again so that these companies are improved.Zach: Man, you said a lot right there, you know what I'm saying? I'm not trying to, like, wear out the Flex bomb, so I'ma just give it a little break. [all laugh] And you know--this is the thing, right? There is a--I don't know. I feel like sometimes, you know, these companies, they think they've just done SO much when they put, like, two black people in charge, you know what I'm saying? And we're like, "Yeah, but there's nobody else." And then these two--like you just said, these two black people, like, they're not really doing anything, or you just kind of shuffle 'em out there and they just kind of say some canned message that you wanted them to say. They're not really moving the needle in no kind of way. You talk to 'em and they're looking back at you--you know, they're looking back at you like that blank face on Get Out, you know what I'm saying? You go in for the dap, they grab your fist. You're like, "What happened?" Like, what's going on, you know what I'm saying? So--Jacinta: Or they sometimes don't have the support. They really don't have that support, so they're feeling alone, you know? Even if there's just two, two of you, it's like you may not have that guidance that you need to feel confident to really make those moves that you may want to make, and I think that happens with a lot of people.Zach: No, you're absolutely right. 'Cause I'ma tell you for me, like, you know, I'm in a position--and often times I'm one of the only ones in these spaces, but if I see one--if I see somebody that looks like me but maybe is, like, I don't know, my dad's age, I'm like, "Oh, snap, what's going on?" And they don't say anything back to me or they kind of give me some, you know, guarded response, I go--now, outside I'm smiling, but on the inside I'm like [damn, damn, damn sfx] You know what I'm saying? Just, like, what's going on?Jacinta: Yeah, and that's--and I wonder too, like, how many times are we, in these leadership roles and scared, you know, to--'cause I know I've walked in meetings, and this is me jokingly, like, you know, if there are more than three of us gathered, I'm gonna make an announcement. [laughs]Zach: What you gonna announce?Jacinta: Like, if we're at work and I walk in a meeting and there's three of us, I'm like, "Oh, we're meeting." You know, "This is happening." You know, I'm excited about it, but I do think there's definitely a category of people who are kind of working in fear, but part of that is just--like we were talking about earlier, knowing your voice, feeling confident and being able to use your voice, and that's part of it. Like, you're just at a place where you don't feel like it's safe enough for you to even have a voice.Netta: Right. I mean, I've even had people say to me they've been nervous to connect with, you know, another black or brown person in the workspace because they didn't want others to feel like they were trying to take over, right? So it would be--like, they would do a little silent text, like, "Meet me outside," and I'm like, "What?" You know? And so that happens a lot too. Zach: No, it does, and I think--how much of that, I wonder, is, like, also generational though? 'Cause, like, it gets to a certain point--and what excites me about Dipper and what I'm hearing is it kind of, like, removes the excuse of white gaze, right? Like, I'm not--white GAZE. G-A-Z-E, y'all. Gaze, you know what I'm saying? White gaze. Yeah, so just the idea of, you know, you needing to kind of, like, be performative in some way or hide a part of who you are, right? Because, you know, come on. Like, really? I mean, you know, we was kings and stuff, but I'm saying, like, two of us can't take over an entire Fortune 50 company. Like, come on now. Like, I should be able to have a conversation with you in the elevator without, you know, y'all thinking we plotting the revolution, right? Stokely Carmichael is not in here. Huey P. Newton is not here.Jacinta: I'm also like, "So what if we are?" [all laugh]Zach: I'm saying. I'm looking back at them like [Cardi B hehe sfx], you know what I'm saying?Jacinta: Because some of it is part--you know, what I think I have kind of lived by in the workplace is if I'm exceeding my performance metrics, if I am busting my tail to, like, meet goals, is there really a boundary? I mean, if I'm doing what I'm supposed to be doing, is there a boundary? Now, sometimes there are hurdles for you being able to successfully do what you're doing, and that needs to be addressed, but, you know, I think if you have a team full of people who are brown, but they're the top team in the company, nobody--people see green, you know? And nobody is going to say anything. I think the problem is when there's a board seat available, people see their friends in their immediate network, and those people all look alike, and so it's like, "How do we get into that flow?" And really we have to do it working together, you know? It can't just be the one person. It really is going to take a lot of us working together. 'Cause who's gonna tell you--like, wh's gonna give you the heads up that, like, "Oh, I know that's your salary, but every other president in the company is making five times that." [laughs] You know? Like, you're going to need those types of insights, and sometimes you're not going to know that if you don't have [?]--Netta: [? drive that?].Jacinta: Yeah, exactly. Zach: So let's talk a little about 2020, right? Like, what are y'all most excited about that Dipper is gonna be doing, like, in 2020? Like, what has y'all, like, really going?Jacinta: Mm-hmm. For me, because I love tech and I love data, that's what I think about almost every night, and I think in 2020 our product is really going to evolve. You know, right now we have the ability to go onto our site, write a review, share their experience, and in 2020 it'll be even so much greater and so much more, and that is something that really excites me about what's to come. You know, the more people who are joining our community, the more in-depth we can make that community experience, and the things that we want to do to provide people with insights on, you know, like we said, salary, available jobs, are just really exciting to me, and all of that data and information that people will have at their fingertips just makes me really looking forward to the new year.Zach: So this has been a dope conversation and we appreciate both of y'all being here. Again, you know what I'm saying, shout-out to everything that y'all are doing. Shout-out to Dipper, you know what I'm saying? I really enjoyed this conversation. I've enjoyed the soundbites. Have y'all enjoyed the soundbites? I've enjoyed my own soundbites - have y'all enjoyed the soundbites?Netta: Yes.Jacinta: Absolutely.Zach: Okay, great. You know what we haven't done, you know what I'm saying, we have not really given y'all the respect of, you know, these air horns, so Sound Man, go ahead and put these air horns right HERE. [air horns sfx] You know, it's just a compliment. It's a thing that we do. It's customary, you know what I mean? It's been over--it's almost, like, two years, and we've been playing these air horns for the good guests. Now, we haven't had any bad guests, but I'm just saying, sometimes we play the air horns just a little bit louder, you know what I mean? And y'all are on the louder side, so we appreciate y'all. Before we go, any shout-outs or parting words?Netta: Yeah. Well, first and foremost, thank you so much for having us on this platform. This was awesome. We're really excited about, you know, the partnerships, the meaningful relationships that we're creating, you know, with different organizations, and we're really excited about our full dynamic platform that's gonna be revealed to the world. This is truly gonna be game-changing and helpful for people of color that are really looking to be guided in the right direction.Jacinta: Absolutely, and I mirror that sentiment exactly. We're so thankful for this opportunity and to be able to speak with you and your audience, and, you know, really just shout-out everybody, all of you who have left a review, who have sent us your feedback and cheering us on, patting us on the back, and even those of you that have challenged us--and maybe even shaded us a little bit--you know, it's all fuel.Zach: Big up to our haters one time.Jacinta: [laughs] We love it, yeah. You can't live without 'em, and, you know, it's been an amazing ride, and it's just the beginning, and, you know, we're just incredibly thankful.Zach: Well, first of all, look, we appreciate y'all. And look, y'all, if you're listening to this--I want everybody to stop, okay? If you're in your car, you know what I'm saying, pull over to the side of the road, okay? Put your hazards on and go to ourdipper.com. This is not even an ad. It's just for the love, you know what I mean? Like, y'all didn't pay us nothing, you know what I mean? It's just off the muscle. So go to ourdipper.com. And you go ahead and just scroll down, you know what I mean, and at the bottom what you're gonna see is--it's gonna say "Need advice? Please take a few moments to provide some insights about your current workplace and experience." Now, look, some of y'all know that Kathy in accounting has been getting on your nerves, okay? Some of y'all know y'all ain't been getting that raise that you need, and some of y'all know you're not having a great experience. Take the time. Go on ourdipper.com. Provide the input. You're not only helping yourself, you're helping everybody that looks like you. And maybe some folks that don't look like you, you know what I'm saying? But lift as you climb. Okay, now, look, this has been a dope episode. Y'all know you've been listening to the Living Corporate podcast. You can check us out anywhere on LivingCorporate--we're on all the platforms. iHeartRadio, Spotify, Soundcloud, YouTube, you know, Pandora. What's another streaming--Google Play, you know what I'm saying? We out here is my point. We active, you know what I mean? Jacinta, 'cause you said you were an [fraternity/sorority], right? [all laugh] We active, you know what I'm saying? You know, we ain't just show up on Homecoming Week, you know what I'm saying, giving people problems. Like, we actually--Jacinta: No t-shirt wearing. [laughs]Zach: Exactly. We're not no [?], you know what I'm saying? We earned ours, you know what I'm saying? We went through the [?]. Don't play with us. [both laugh] So the point is, you know, we appreciate y'all. Check us out on Twitter @LivingCorp_Pod, Instagram @LivingCorporate. If you have any questions you want to email us, you know what I'm saying, livingcorporatepodcast@gmail.com. You can also just DM us if you have any questions and you want to shout us out. If you want us to shout somebody out for y'all, hit us up. Let's see. Website? Living-corporate--please say the dash--dot com. Now, you also could do livingcorporate.co, livingcorporate.tv, livingcorporate.org, livingcorporate.net. We've got all of the livingcorporates, y'all... we don't have livingcorporate.com, though. Not yet. Not yet.Jacinta: Soon come.Zach: Soon come, hey. [both laugh] Let's see here. That's it. You've been listening to Zach, and of course you've been listening to Netta and Jacinta, co-founders and movers and shakers of Dipper and Edge Snatchers. Peace.